No More Secrets
by BeautifulFghtr
Summary: After Dean was inexplicably released from his hell contract, Sam began receiving anonymous and untraceable emails leading the boys on new hunts.
1. Down on Devil Street Part 1

Dean rubbed at his eyes as he stared down what was quite possibly the most boring stretch of highway he'd been down yet. The open fields, the hills that were only slightly rolling, the full moon above casting an eerie glow on the low hanging, midnight fog - were all working against him. He was getting drowsy, but they'd come to far to stop now. The town they were heading to was supposedly only five more miles, but Dean was beginning to have his doubts.

His eyes were starting to get heavy and before he knew it, the car began to swerve off the road. Hitting the divots on the side of the highway caused the Imapla to vibrate and the tires made an awful noise against the intermittent holes in the blacktop.

Dean jerked awake just in time to see a large animal - or something - dart onto the highway directly in front of the oncoming car - and stop.

Dean slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel hard to the right. "God dammit!" he shouted as the precious black Impala jumped wildly into the shallow roadside ditch.

Sam Winchester had been lost in a world of evil lollipops and killer candy-canes. Damn himself for ever making that joke to Dean!! The horrible sound and vibrating under his ass, then Dean shouting and the car jerking off the road woke Sam with a start. "What the hell?" he half shouted back at Dean.

Dean's heart was racing and his breathing had quickened with the sudden adrenaline rush. He spun around in the seat, looking up and down the highway in search of whatever that had been that ran out in front of him. He was more than fully awake now.

"Something," he said in answer to Sam's grunted question.

"Out here?" Sam asked, confusion in his voice as he looked around at the landscape around them.

"I don't know," Dean said quietly as he killed the engine and got out of the car. Sam wasn't far behind. Dean surveyed the road. He took a few steps to where he was certain he'd seen it. He squatted down and pulled the ever present flashlight from his inner coat pocket. He shined the light first to the left of him, then to the right across the street. The beam disappeared into the darkness. He pointed the light to the ground in front of him as his hand reached down to feel lightly of the grass.

"You see that?" he asked Sam and waited for Sam to squat down beside him. Sam pulled out his own flashlight and shown it on the spot. The second Sam's beam joined Dean's, Dean broke away and stood up, walking out into the street where he thought it had crossed.

"The grass is bent, but not a blade broken," Sam said as he also reached down to the grass. "It's a perfect foot print of some kind, though," he said as he stood and used the flashlight to follow the prints. "They started here!" he called out to Dean. He used the flashlight to look around him. Nothing. Not a tree. Not a building. Not a fence. Absolutely nothing that a creature could have been hiding in or resting on when they drove by. The prints just started.

"They stop here," Dean called from the other side of the highway separating them. His flashlight scanned the ground around him, but he couldn't see anything. Not a tree. Not a building. Not a fence. Absolutely nothing that a creature could have hid in or jumped up on to rest. They just stopped.

"What the hell is going on here, Sammy?" he shouted as he started to cross the highway again.

"I don't know! It doesn't make sense," Sam replied as he also started walking, but in the direction of the Impala.

It happened before either of them could take a breath. Dean's eyes involuntarily followed the beam from Sam's flashlight as it shot straight up in the air. The worst part about that is that it was still in Sam's hand.

"Sam!" Dean screamed as he ran the rest of the way across the highway to the spot where Sam's feet had left the ground. The flashlight came tumbling down through the air, landing at Dean's feet and shattering to pieces that flew in every direction.

"SAM!"


	2. Days of War

Two weeks earlier…

Sam was always against killing humans when they were possessed. Dean was trying to be, but let's face it, even Dean had moments when he really didn't care as much. This time had been different, though. They'd really had no choice. The man the demon possessed had been destroyed long ago. Past memories of Meg had flooded Sam's mind. The way her body had been crushed but still functioned as long as the demon had a hold of it came back to him as he'd looked at the man before him. As soon as the demon inside of Meg had been released, she'd died.

This poor guy had been the same. Without the demon inside of him, he'd be dead within minutes. This demon, though, was much meaner and harder to get rid of than Meg had ever dreamt of being. It didn't need a binding link to stay inside the human body, even through an attempted exorcism. No, this one was beyond all that. It wasn't as mighty as Satan himself was prophesied to be, but it was pretty damned close.

The fight had been a nasty one. Dean and Sam both were covered in blood – as much their own and each other's as from the body that had housed the demon they'd been fighting. They both had wished for another ending to this particular battle, but in the end, any alternative would have been much too painful for the human occupant of the flesh body.

Dean somehow managed to get to his feet and stumbled over to where Sam lay motionless on the floor. "Sam!" he called as he fell painfully to his knees beside his brother. "Come on, Sam."

A groan from Sam was the only indication he gave that he was still alive, but it was enough for Dean for now. Dean fell back against the wall behind him, stretching his aching and bleeding legs out before him. "Son of a bitch," he uttered breathlessly.

Sam finally stirred, moving his body slowly as he attempted to roll over. He finally gave that up as a lost cause and simply turned his head to rest the other cheek against the cool concrete floor of the empty warehouse in which they found themselves.

"You alive?" he asked Dean even as his eyes scanned his brother's body for any life threatening injuries.

Dean cradled his left arm with his right hand. Yeah, he was pretty sure it was broken. Damn! He hated hospitals! "Barely. You?" he asked in return.

"Less than barely," Sam answered between breaths. He took a deep breath and somehow forced himself to turn over. He moved slowly until he was able to sit up and lean against the same wall Dean was using for support.

"Well," Dean began breathlessly as he glanced over at Sam, "we learned that even fire won't drive the demons out if they don't want out."

Not that that bit of information had been a big discovery, anyway. The two men pretty much already knew that. After all, demons were born of fire. Well, most of them were anyway. At least now they have confirmation.

"You need a doctor," Sam said as he looked over at the wrist Dean seemed to be babying.

"No, I don't!" Dean whined as he attempted finally to stand. He made it to his feet only to fall back to lean against the wall. At least he was still standing, though! "We need to find out who in the hell is sending you those damned emails!"

Sam struggled to stand himself. "We've had this conversations at least a dozen time now, Dean," Sam said, somewhat frustrated at having to repeat himself – again. "The emails are untraceable. So is the source."

"Well, it's starting to piss me off!" Dean nearly shouted. "Every one is a new case – everything we need find it, kick out, and destroy whatever it is. More and more of them are demons. Why? Who's doing this? And why the hell did they have to pick us?"

Sam nodded but didn't speak. They were all familiar questions. His answers would also be just as familiar. "I'll run another trace when we get back to the hotel and get cleaned up. And after you see a doctor."

"Ah, Sam!" Dean groaned, annoyed that Sam wouldn't let it go – even more annoyed that he was right. "Fine. Let's go. But I want answers!"


	3. Suffer to Survive

Dean felt his heart racing in his chest and he took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. He was having a really hard time with it, though. The conversation with Bobby earlier kept playing over and over in his head.

One hour earlier:

"What the hell is going on, Bobby?! There's a pattern developing here that I really don't like! With crazy human hunters and old Yellow Eyes, Sam's been disappearing a few too many times." The pieces of the broken flashlight crunched under Dean's heavy boots as he paced by the side of the road. The head lights from the Impala cast an errie glow through the thickening fog.

"What in the hell were you boys after out there?" Bobby asked worriedly as he adjusted the baseball cap on his head. He really didn't like the sound of this any more than Dean did. Something was wrong. It wasn't normal – even in their very abnormal lives.

"It was supposed to be just another gyn!" Dean practically shouted. "You ever heard of a gyn that doesn't leave footprints and can fly?"

Bobby frowned and as if Dean could see him, shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "You know as well as I do that gyn have a human form. Look, just stay where you are. I'll come there."

-------------

Dean shined his flashlight around the open space, looking for a sign that a gyn – or anything else for that matter – had been in the empty warehouse. Obviously something had been around somewhere, or Sam wouldn't be missing at the moment. So far, though, there was nothing. Bobby would be there in less than ten hours, but as they both knew all too well, a lot could happen in ten hours.

----------

Sam awoke with a jolt and sat straight up. His eyes were open, but he couldn't tell it. The room was more than pitch black. Even his hand touching his nose was swallowed up by the darkness enveloping him. He knew he was sitting on solid ground; he could feel the cold concrete beneath him. But what else was in the room? All he really knew for sure was that the room was totally enclosed.

Moving slowly and on all fours at first, Sam began to move. He felt each inch of the floor as he moved. Finally, a solid wall met his touch before him. Still moving slowly with his hands on the wall, he stood. Pain shot through his back as he straightened, but he chalked it up to laying on a concrete floor for who knew how long.

The wall as far as he could tell was bare sheetrock and was cool to the touch. Even standing and stretching as far as he could reach, his hands found no ceiling. Still, he knew there was one.

"Hello?" he said aloud, listening to hear how much of his voice disappeared. The room wasn't very big from the sound of it, but was big enough.

Sam began once again to use the power of touch to navigate. He felt nothing on the wall. No light switch. No electrical outlet. Not even a grove where the pieces of the sheetrock were joined together.

Sam continued his blind search of the room. He finally determined that the room was rectangular, close enough to about ten feet by twelve feet. There was what felt like a door, but there was no window in it, no handle, and when Sam banged on it, he could tell it was completely solid. There were still no light switches, no electrical outlets, no anything. The room had obviously been built exactly for what it was being used for – a prison.

The only thing Sam did find in the room was a thin, very worn mattress. By the smell of it, Sam was grateful that whoever had put him in this room had laid him on the concrete.

He knew it was pointless, but Sam felt in his pockets for his cell phone. Sure enough. Gone. He felt his way over to the corner opposite the door and sat down. He felt better having his back resting against the juncture of two solid walls. At least that way, he'd have a better chance of knowing it if something were coming after him. Of course, right now he couldn't see anything anyway, so it was really more a personal feeling than a practical thought.

Sam let out heavy breath as he leaned back against the wall. He kept opening and closing his eyes, hoping from each moment to the next that something would change. Nothing did. As he sat back, blinking into the darkness, Sam found himself doing something he hadn't done in quite awhile. He prayed.


	4. Gotta Stay Alive

The darkness of the room was really starting to close in. Sam had long ago lost track of time. Day and night were no longer tangible things in the small, blackened room. He'd tried once to count the hours, but he'd only made it to 45 minutes before even that had become tedious and driving him closer to insanity. Every once in a while, he would stand up where he was and do some jumping jacks, or jog in place, anything he could think of to stretch his body and keep his heart pumping.

Sam had no idea how long he'd been in the room, but he knew it had been a long time. His stomach ached from lack of food, and restroom facilities… well, suffice it to say that was most likely why the mattress smelled like it did.

Without any warning, the black world in which Sam now lived was blasted with light. The suddenness at which the light over head flashed on sent Sam's senses into overload. The pain that shot through his head was instantaneous and strong. He thought he heard himself cry out from the pain, but it could have been his imagination. Sam covered his eyes with his hands and tried to calm his pounding head and racing heart.

The door on the other side of the room opened and a try was slid onto the floor. The door to the room slammed shut as quickly as it had been opened, and before Sam could even attempt to adjust to the light, the room was plunged into darkness again. He stayed where he was for several minutes, trying to recover from the onslaught and somewhat fearing another one.

It didn't take long, though, before the smell of food filled the room. Sam's stomach growled uncontrollably as the smell filled his nostrils. He moved slowly, as before when he'd searched the room, again using his hands as his guides. He finally found the edge of the tray. His fingers searched the contents as best he could.

A surprise! A small flashlight rested on the tray. It was tiny – small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The light it produced was minute, but it was enough that he wasn't totally in darkness anymore.

He forced himself to eat only a portion of the food on the tray. If this was to be his only meal for awhile, he needed to make it last as long as possible.

It was then that a thought dawned on him. Time! His watch was still attached to his wrist and finally with the small flashlight he'd been given, he could tell what time it was. But yet another surprise awaited Sam.

"What the hell?"

-----------------------------------------

Dean shined his flashlight down the isle of the warehouse in both directions. His trained eye searched for anything out of the ordinary. Well, for him it would be totally ordinary, but that was beside the point. He knew what he was looking for, and so far, he hadn't found it.

Bobby was with him now and together they had searched fifteen abandoned barns, warehouses, crop bins, and a few other buildings they couldn't really identify. A couple of abandoned farmhouses in the area were next on the list. So far, there was no sign of Sam – nor the thing that took him. Dean's frustration was great, and it had him even more on edge than usual.

A pingy version of "Smoke On The Water" came floating out through the pocket of Dean's black denim jeans. He reached for the phone feeling the same sense of hope he'd felt everytime his phone had rung since Sam's disappearing act. The anger and added frustration were the same, too, when he saw that it wasn't Sam calling.

"Bobby. Anything?" he asked gruffly.

"Maybe." Bobby's voice sounded distant and scratchy through the poor cell phone signal. "Meet me on the highway."


	5. I Know What I'm Fighting For

Dean didn't reply to Bobby's barked order before he snapped the phone shut. The two men had long ago stopped butting heads. Or more like Dean had finally stopped fighting. After the death of his father, Bobby had been there. That had been enough for Dean.

Dean slid behind the wheel of his baby, his precious 1967 Impala, the very car his father had given him, and started the engine. The purr of the engine was unmistakable. He loved that sound more than just about any other sound he'd ever heard. Her voice came flooding back to him – as it sometimes did – unbidden and, right now, unwelcome. She still haunted him from time to time. Most of the time, he could shut his eyes really tightly and force her to go away, but there were still times when even that didn't work and he just had to let himself remember. Luckily, this was one of the former. She left his mind as quickly as she'd come into it. Dean threw the car into gear and peeled out, leaving a cloud of flying gravel and dust behind him as he sped towards the highway.

"What's up?" he asked as soon as he parked behind Bobby's beat up 2-door "Frankenstein" car and got out.

Bobby stood at the tail of his car, leaning against the trunk as he waited for Dean. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest as he most often did. He motioned towards the passenger side of his car as soon as Dean got out of his. "Come on. I think found 'tracks' like the ones you described."

The two men got into Bobby's car and an old Johnny Cash song poured from the speakers when Bobby turned the key.

Dean gave Bobby a raised-eyebrow look as the song filled the car. Bobby refused to look at Dean. "Don't say a word," he said as he put the car in drive and pulled away from the shoulder. They drove what felt like forever to Dean, but everything felt like forever to him right now. Bobby finally came to a stop and in an empty field and after killing the engine, got out of the car. Dean followed, but didn't say anything – yet.

Bobby walked about ten feet before stopping over a broken barbed wire fence that very nearly laid on the ground. Another twenty feet or so and he came to a stop and crouched down.

Dean stopped and crouched beside him, looking at the grassy spot before them. "It's exactly the same," he stated to Bobby as he took a pen out of his pocket and lifted up the bent over grass to check the blades below. "All bent over, not a blade broken." His eyes scanned the area to see if there were more.

Even as he did, Bobby spoke up. "The tracks go all the way into that corn field. I followed them in as far as I could, but they get harder to follow."

Dean stood up and pocketed the pen. "Maybe they're aliens. Like that movie with Mel Gibson and the crop circles." He looked at Bobby with a slight grin on his face. He was trying to keep it light – like this was nothing unusual to him – like Sammy being gone wasn't tearing him apart.

Bobby gave Dan a "don't be stupid" look and began to walk beside the strange imprints. As they got closer to the edge of the corn field, the prints became less visible. Once the two men passed through the wall of corn, the prints became more like whisps in the dirt. The imprint was unmistakable as being made by the same thing. It was hard to describe the way they looked. They looked both pounded down by a heavy force and like they'd been blown by a breath of air all at the same time.

Bobby had been right. The further in they went, the harder the tracks were to follow. Dean finally lost them in the same place Bobby had.

"What the hell is it, Bobby?" Dean asked in a frustrated voice.

Bobby motioned back towards the car. "Come on. I think I have an idea."


	6. Take a Look

Once Bobby dropped Dean back at the highway to get his car, Dean followed Bobby back into town and to the motel where Bobby had checked in. They entered Bobby's room and Dean was immediately struck at much the room already looked like Bobby's house. There were books and newspapers and all sorts of other research materials all over the room.

"Bobby. You just got here. What the hell is all this."

Bobby looked over at Dean like he was crazy. "Always be prepared. Boy scout motto, right?"

Dean nodded and gave Bobby a strange look. "Yeah, sure," he said as he walked over to a chair by the table, sat down, and picked up a few of the pieces of paper on the table. "So what the hell are we dealing with here?"

Bobby began moving papers around on the bed, obviously looking for something buried beneath the mountain of paper. He finally found what he was looking for and stood up, carrying the book over to Dean. "Is this what you saw?" he asked as he pointed to a drawing on the page.

Dean took the book and looked at the image Bobby pointed to. "Dammit Bobby! That's it!" Dean looked at the text around the picture, but it wasn't English. He couldn't quit recognize what it was, and he certainly couldn't read it. "What the hell is it?"

Bobby looked at Dean and watched for his expression. "It's a soldier demon."

Dean looked up from the book at Bobby. "No way. They can't get out of hell, can they?"

Bobby shook his head and walked over to a small refrigerator that sat in the corner of the room. He pulled out two bottles of beer and popped the tops off before handing one to Dean. "Not usually, no. They're bound by hell's laws and can't escape that. The only way they can get out is if another demon physically carries them out. That just doesn't happen. Demons travel better alone, and soldier demons weigh them down – makes it harder for them to move from plane to plane. But the real kicker is – I haven't heard of a soldier demon being able to move about freely in over 3000 years. Even if they make it out of hell, they require a host body to be able to survive. They can't just jump from person to person like the other demons can."

"Bobby, this thing wasn't in a host body. It was out – on its own. How is that possible?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Yesterday, I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but yesterday I didn't think there was a knife capable of killing demons, either, and Ruby proved me wrong on that one. One think you gotta learn in this business – you never learn all there is to learn."

Dean stood up from the chair and started pacing the floor in his usual manner. He stuck one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other he held up to his face as he chewed slightly on the end of his thumbnail. It was a bad habit, but one he couldn't entirely break himself of. "So what do we do? How do we track something that until now we thought was impossible to begin with?"

Bobby gave Dean a frustration look. "I'm not really sure yet. I've made some phone calls, though, and I should hear something within the hour."

Dean stood up and reached for his jacket.

"Where the hell are you going?" Bobby asked grumpily.

Dean looked at Bobby as he pulled the coat on and dug his keys out of his pocket. "I'm going back out to that corn field. You call me if you hear anything."

"Dean, wait. You can't go traipsing around out there by yourself. If that thing comes back, it will have both of you!"

Dean turned to Bobby, an angry and defiant expression on his face. "I don't care, Bobby! I can't just sit here and do nothing while it's got Sam! If I can get even a few feet closer to it, I'm going to go!"

"And what am I supposed to do if you both disappear?" Bobby didn't like this plan at all. These boys were like sons to him – especially with John gone. Bobby had really taken it upon himself to watch out for them, and the thought of losing either one of them scared the hell out of him.

"If we both disappear, find Ruby. I'm willing to bet you anything she'll know about what's going on here. Especially if freaking soldier demons are involved." Dean reached for the doorknob but hesitated and turned back to Bobby, a more compassionate and sad look on his face. "I can't just leave him out there, Bobby. I have to at least try to find him."

Bobby knew even before they'd started that he'd lost this fight, but he'd also known he had to try. "I know," he said quietly.


	7. Hear the Battle Cries

Dean marched through the tall grass, following the same path he'd taken with Bobby just a short time ago. He knew it was stupid to go out here alone, but couldn't just sit around and wait. Bobby was going to do things the way he wanted to, and so was Dean. He was going to find out as much as he could. He followed the tracks into the cornfield, looking for another print left by the creature. There had to be more. There had to be _something_ more! Surely this thing didn't just stop right here where it was.

Before Dean even had a chance to know what was coming, a searing pain shot through the back of his skull and he felt himself being lifted off the ground. He didn't have time to think or even cry out before unconsciousness took over.

------------------------------

Sam was starting to drift. He had no idea how long he'd been awake in the darkened room. With a haywire watch and no way of knowing if it was night or day, his senses were starting to shut down. He was fighting sleep, but at the moment, it was a losing battle. His head bobbed forward and in an instant, Sam found himself laying flat on his back in the middle of what looked like tall stalks of corn. It was dim outside – not bright but not yet dark, either. Sam groaned as even that small amount of light hurt his head. He covered his eyes with his hand and sat up. He couldn't tell if this was real or if he was dreaming. The cold dirt beneath him and the clap of thunder overhead sure felt and sounded real enough.

Slowly, Sam began to remove his hand and open his eyes. It took what felt like a long time for his eyes to adjust, but finally he could look around him without the throbbing pain in his head. What the hell was going on? It was a question he seemed to be asking a lot recently. He stood up, trying to get a better look around him. He couldn't really see much besides corn stalks in any direction. He was tall, mind you, but at the moment, the corn was taller.

He looked around for any clue of direction. It wasn't long before Sam spotted the footprints on the ground. The pattern was unmistakable. Dean had been here – and recently. Sam began walking, following the footprints through the corn to the edge of the field. As he emerged from the tall stalks, he could see the Impala ahead. Dean. Thank God.

Sam took off in a run towards the car, jumping over the nearly fallen barbed wire fence like a hurdler jumps in a race. He reached the car quickly and was surprised to find it empty. Even more surprising was Dean's cell phone lying in the front seat. Dean never went anywhere without that phone. Something was wrong.

Sam slid into the driver's seat. Even the keys were in the ignition. This was bad. Very bad. Sam grabbed Dean's phone and quickly dialed Bobby's cell phone number from memory. "Bobby! It's me. I need you! Something strange is going on!"

"You're telling me," Bobby answered in a surprised tone. "Sam? Where are you?"

Sam looked around, a bit confused, but more anxious about why Dean's was here but there was no sign of Dean. "I'm really not sure. I'm at the edge of a corn field. The car is here, and Dean's phone was in the seat, but there's no sign of Dean."

"Damn!" Bobby uttered into the phone. "Alright. I know where you are. Just stay there! Don't move from the car, do you understand me?"

Sam nodded his head, even though he knew Bobby couldn't see him. "Yeah, I got it. I won't move." He snapped Dean's phone shut, but then quickly opened it again to look at the time and date display that covered the picture of a half naked girl Dean used as a wallpaper. "Four days," he whispered in astonishment. He'd been held in that place for four days. It hardly seemed possible, but according to Dean's phone, that was it. He stared at the display again to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Nope. It had really been four days. Almost to the hour. Wow.

Sam was sitting in the car – just as he'd been told to do – when Bobby pulled up beside him and got out of his own car. Sam got out, too, and the two men stood face to face. Bobby looked him up and down and without warning, threw a splash of holy water in Sam's face.

Sam sputtered slightly as he reached up to wipe his face. "Bobby. It's me. Come on!"

"Sorry," Bobby said with a slightly sheepish shrug. "Can't be too careful. You've been missing for four days, Sam. And Dean and I figured out who's been holding you. You'd probably do the same thing."

"Who's been holding me?" Sam asked quickly. "And where's Dean? The thing that had me kept asking me about something that Dean supposedly has."

Bobby looked at Sam again and finally nodded towards the cars. "My guess is that it let you go and has Dean now. Come on. Come back to the hotel with me, and I'll tell you everything we've figured out."

Sam hesitated. "Bobby. If it's got Dean, we have to find him!"

Bobby turned back to Sam, his obvious frustration written all over his face. "Dean and I have been looking for you for four days now. We couldn't find you, so what makes you think you and I can find him? Trust me, Sam. You need to come back to the hotel with me. You're not getting out of my sight, and that's final."

Sam knew better than to argue with Bobby when he was like this. "Fine," he said quietly and once again slid behind the wheel of the car. It felt wrong to be driving the Impala without Dean beside him giving him a lecture about his driving habits or questioning every turn he made. He followed Bobby up to the main road, then through the winding roads to an old, broken down motel. He followed Bobby into a room and within minutes, had a beer in his hand and listened as Bobby began to spell out everything that he and Dean had figured out.


	8. Fists in the Sky

Dean paced back and forth in the empty room, wishing like hell that he'd listened to Bobby. He had no idea right now what was happening. Did they want him dead? If so, why hadn't they killed him yet? And what about Sam? Had these demons already killed Sam? Or were they working of kind of demonic hoo-doo magic to make Sam a slave for them to do what they wanted him to do?

He had so many questions and just not enough answers. These were the times when he wished he wasn't so stubborn when it came to Sam. But the bottom line was, he'd made a promise to his father that he would always watch out for Sammy – not to mention the promise he'd made to himself. He couldn't imagine his life without his kid brother, and it irritated him to no end that he'd screwed up – again.

Now, Dean just didn't know what to do. These things had him and most likely still had Sam. Now it was up to Bobby to save them both. Dean still paced as the thoughts raced through his head. He didn't know what to do anymore. He was officially stuck – and that was just not something that happened to Dean very often. He hated the feeling more than just about anything.

Dean had already found the small flashlight that had been in the corner of the room. He used it to check his watch one more time. Yep – still all screwy. Typical. Damned demons can't do anything right. They really just had to screw up everything, didn't they? Dean continued to pace, counting the number of steps he took in each direction. It was the only way he could pace in the pitch black of the room without running into the walls.

Suddenly, a bright light appeared overhead and the suddenness of it left Dean blinded and doubling over in pain. He cried out as the pain shot through his head and his eyes seemed to burn as the light flooded the room. "What the hell?!" he screamed loudly.

A dark figure appeared in the room, but it didn't appear as a solid being. The figure looked more like a shadow on the wall, even though there was nothing there to make a shadow. "Where is the child, Dean?" The voice seemed to echo off the walls, as if coming from the walls themselves, not the being in the room.

Deans eyes were finally starting to adjust, but it was still painful to really open them. He squinted at the figure across the room from him and threw it a "go to hell" look. "What the hell are you talking about?" he spat out.

Before the words were even fully out of his mouth, the being disappeared and the room went back to black. The suddenness of the darkness was as stark as the light had been, and it left Dean feeling disoriented at first. He flipped on the small flashlight and found his way to the corner of the room. He sunk to the floor and clutched his now pounding head between his hands and sucked in a few deep breaths as he tried to calm his racing heart and rising anger.

Dean threw his head back. "What the hell do you want from me?!" he screamed into the darkness of the room. As before when he'd asked questions, he received no answer.

---------

Sam and Bobby sat in the motel room, the two men stunned and not sure what to do next. They had to find Dean. There had to be a way. "What are we supposed to do, Bobby?"

Bobby looked at Sam. He shook his head in disbelieve and said with a surprised tone of voice, "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but summon Ruby."


	9. Look Into My Eyes

Sam looked up at the door. He half expected Bobby to walk through it at any minute. He was really glad that Bobby was letting him do this one on his own. He wasn't entirely sure why, but he wanted to be alone with Ruby - even if only for a few minutes. There was something terrifying and yet fascinating about her all at the same time.

Sam turned his concentration back to the task at hand. He had almost all of the symbols needed already drawn on the dark concrete floor of the empty warehouse. He concentrated on the last - and most difficult - symbol, making sure the curves and lines were exact. He stood up and stared at the completed piece on the floor below him. It all was just right. Sam looked around the room one more time before dropping the last bit into the urn at his feet. He watched almost in a trance as the flame of unreal colors flashed up brightly, then burned out.

"Why, Sam. And to think, all this time you left me down there, I thought you didn't love me." Ruby stepped out of the shadows with a trademark grin on her face.

The dark hair, deep brown eyes, and olive colored skin were in such contrast to the ivory skinned blond she'd occupied before. Sam was surprised, and oddly attracted. "New body?" he asked - just something to break the ice a little.

Ruby looked down at herself before looking back up at Sam, an impish little smile on her face. "Yeah. Just thought I'd try someo... something new on for size. Why? You like it?"

Sam stared at her, trying not to let his thoughts run away with him, and failing miserably. He couldn't help it. She just... fascinated him. It was the only word he could think of. "Whatever, Ruby. Look, I need your help."

Ruby looked at him surprised. "You finally ready to learn some new tricks?"

Sam rolled his eyes skyward and let out a heavy sigh. "We've had this discussion before. You know that's not why I called you here." It was the truth, after all. They really had been through this at least a hundred times. It felt that way, anyway.

Ruby shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "Oh well. Can't blame a girl for trying. So why exactly am I here, Sam?"

Sam looked at her as though he thought she was crazy. She had to know what was going on. "You really mean to tell me that you have no idea what's going on?"

Ruby raised her eyebrows at him inquisitively. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Sam."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, how about this? Why don't you tell me what you know about soldier demons."

"Soldier demons?" she asked quickly. "I don't know. The same as everybody else," she said with a shrug. "They are bound by the laws of hell - can't get out unless carried out. And that NEVER happens anymore."

"Well, it's sure as hell happened now. And the one that got out is loose."

Ruby scoffed at Sam as if he were crazy one now. "Yeah, right, Sam. One thing I do know for sure about them is that they can't live without a human host."

Sam took an angry step forward, his rage starting to flare. "Then tell me why in the hell I just spent the last four days being held captive by that now has Dean?!" he shouted.

Ruby could tell just by the look on his face and the flash in his eyes that he wasn't jerking her chain. She took a step forward so that now the two were standing within inches of touching distance. "Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I don't know how one could have gotten out - let alone gotten loose."

Sam felt his angry stance start to slip a little when she stepped so close to him that he could literally feel the body heat coming off the girl Ruby now possessed. He looked down at her, his green eyes locking with her chocolate brown ones. "What do they want with Dean, Ruby?"

Ruby took a step back and again scoffed at Sam. "Come on. You know it's not Dean they want."

Sam felt the anger rising up in him again. "How do you know?! They kept saying that Dean has something they want. Dean doesn't have anything! You have the knife and Bela took off with the Colt months ago!"

Ruby looked at Sam and held his gaze for a long time before speaking. "You really don't know, do you?"

Sam's frustration was acute by now, and he was ready to strangle her right there on the spot. "That's what I've been trying to tell you! I don't know what the hell is going on, but I want some damned answers! Now!"

Ruby finally nodded and again stepped forward, this time reaching out and touching Sam's arm. "Okay. I'll tell you what I know. But you'll need to be sitting down for this one. And I need food. Well, okay, I don't need it, but the body I'm occupying sure does, and French fries and a burger sound absolutely wonderful right now."

sam looked at Ruby and wanted to protest, but right now, he didn't see how he could do that. She had answers - answers that he desperately needed. "Fine, let's go."


	10. No More Secrets

Within 30 minutes, Sam had driven with Ruby into town, purchased a few hamburger combo meals and was back at the hotel. Bobby waited inside, frustrated and worried because it had taken so long. He'd been certain that the demon that had Dean had come back for Sam, too, and that he would have to rescue them both. Sam apologized and the three of them sat down to eat, but it wasn't long before Sam turned to Ruby and told her to spill it.

Ruby looked at Sam and Bobby and quickly stood up. She knew this was going to freak them out and she didn't want to be anywhere near either of them when the truth came out. Not to mention, it was a long story and she just didn't do well with long narratives.

"Okay, first of all, Sam - are you being totally straight with me when you tell me that you don't know what this about?"

Sam's annoyance played heavily on his features. "Ruby..." he stated angrily. He didn't even need to finish the statement. She got it.

"Okay. This is a long story - goes back to before you boys were in London last summer."

"What does this have to do with London?" Sam asked confused.

Ruby spun around on her heal and glared at Sam. "Patience, Sam?" she spat out.

"Demons. Ruby. Have Dean!"

Ruby held up her hands in surrender. "Okay. I assume that Sadie told you and Dean what she really is, right?"

"Sadie McGreggor? What? You mean that she's half demon and half human? Yeah, she told us. So what does that have to do with Dean?" Sam replied. He could see the look on Bobby's face out of the corner of his eye. He looked over at Bobby and just shrugged apologetically. He knew this part of the story was new to Bobby, but he didn't have time right now to explain it all to Bobby.

Ruby, too, saw the look on Bobby's face and knew that the boys hadn't told him everything that had happened in London. She actually found that pretty funny. "It's not Dean they want. It's what he has. Or rather, what he gave to Sadie in London. That's what they really want. They are assuming that Dean knows all about it and knows where Sadie is."

Sam looked over at Bobby, confusion written all over his face, then back at Ruby. "Dean hasn't even heard from her since she left him in London."

Now it was Ruby's turn to look surprised. "Wow. I actually know something you don't." Ruby looked from Sam to Bobby and back at Sam. "Sam, when Sadie left London, she wasn't alone."

Sam shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, still not understanding. "What does that mean?"

Ruby stopped in her pacing and looked again at the two men. She wanted to memorize Sam's response to this one. "Sadie was pregnant - with Dean's child."

Sam and Bobby simultaneously chocked on the drinks they both had in their mouths when those words escaped her lips. "What?!" Bobby sputtered out.

Ruby tried to hide the chuckle that built up in her chest, but she couldn't keep all of it inside. A small, very girly-like giggle escaped as she watched the reactions of the two before her.

Sam looked at Bobby and Bobby looked at Sam. The two men were flabbergasted. Bobby was the first to finally speak. "Well, with the way that boy sleeps around, it was bound to happen sooner or later," he said with the same kind of shrug Sam had give him a moment ago at the mention of Sadie.

"Wow," Sam finally said quietly. "Dean actually succeeded in impregnating someone. And not just any someone - a half demon."

Ruby stopped and threw her hands up in the air triumphantly. "Well, Boy Wonder finally gets it!" she said excitedly.

Sam gave Ruby a "drop dead" look before he finally caught on to what else was being said here. "Wait… if it's not Dean they're after…"

Ruby looked at Sam and nodded as she realized that he'd finally figured it out. This was going to be a nightmare in the making, and she couldn't help but wonder if he was really for what was coming.


	11. See Right Through

Dean parked his car over the oily spot on the street that had long ago stained the asphalt and marked this house as his. The old, beat up Chevy Nova was a far cry from the precious Impala, but it would have to do just for tonight while the Impala was getting a new coat of paint at the shop. Dean felt incredibly tired as he shut off the engine and got out of the car. It had been a long day. He'd left for the shop before sun-up and it was already well after dark. He didn't know what time it was, but he did know that he'd missed dinner with Sadie - and she wouldn't be happy about it.

Dean opened the door and after kicking off his oil, dirty boots and leaving them on the porch, he let himself into the darkened house quietly. Honestly, he hoped she was already in bed. She'd be less angry about him missing dinner tomorrow after a good night's sleep than she would have been tonight.

He frowned as he passed by the dinner table. She'd even put out candles for the dinner. They had burned down to nubbins before she'd finally blown them out. Damn! He'd really blown it tonight. He padded softly down the hallway, checking the office first. Good. The room was dark and the computer turned off. He continued down past the bathroom and slowly pushed open the door to the next room.

Sadie sat in the oversized wooden rocking chair, leaning her head against the backrest with her eyes closed. He knew she was awake, though, as the chair was still rocking back and forth rhythmically.

When the door let out a soft creek, Sadie opened her eyes and quickly lifted a finger to her lips in the universal sign of "shh". Dean moved into the room slowly so as not to make any noise. "I'm sorry, Baby," he mouthed quietly as he leaned over to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.

Sadie smiled at him and shook her head. "It's okay. I knew you were busy."

Her response surprised him, but he wasn't going to question it. Sadie would normally be piping mad if he missed dinner, but tonight, something was different. Dean looked down at the bundled up blanket on her lap and smiled as he reached out a finger to the small pink cheek. The baby girl moved her mouth in a sucking motion even in sleep and Dean couldn't help the tide of emotions that washed through him. That little angel was the greatest thing that ever happened to him.

Sadie finally began to stir in the chair. She lifted the baby with her as she stood and carried the blankets still wrapped around the baby to the bassinet. She lovingly and gently placed the baby in the small bed and just as Dean had done a moment ago, she ran a finger down the soft skin of their baby's cheek.

Once the baby was secure and sleeping soundly, Sadie turned and grabbed Dean's hand as she passed him, leading him out of the room. Silently the two headed further down the hall to the master bedroom. As soon as the door was shut behind them, Sadie pressed herself against Dean and wrapped her arms around his neck. The kiss she planted on him was enough to make any man go weak in the knees.

Dean hadn't expected this from her, but the unexpectedness of it was part of the thrill. He reached down without breaking the kiss and lifted her off her feet, carrying her over to the bed. He laid her down before climbing on top of her, still kissing her like he was going down for the last time.

His hands were on her skin in an instant and he kissed every inch of her that he possibly could. He shirt was half way up her body when out of nowhere, a blinding pain shot through his head. He cried out and immediately fell off her, hitting the floor beside the bed with a loud thud.

"Dean!" Sadie shouted and clamored down to the floor beside him. "What's wrong?"

Dean held his head with both his hands as stars danced in his vision. "I... I don't know," he managed to sputter out before another blinding shot of pain ran through his head.

"I'll call the doctor! Tell me again what county we're in?"

Her question threw him for a loop more than anything else that had happened tonight. "What?" he asked, confused by her question.

"Come on, Dean! Where are we? I can't get the number from information without knowing where we are!"

Dean rolled to the side so he was sitting with his back against the bed. As he looked up at Sadie, the pain in his head began to subside and he finally was able to see more clearly. Suddenly, something was off. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was, but something was definitely off. Sadie didn't look quite right, and it was then that items in the room began to look unfamiliar to him.

"What the hell is going on?"

The look of panic and worry left Sadie's face as she stood above him. "Where am I, Dean? I know you know where I am. Just tell me, and things can go back to the way they were - the way they're supposed to be."

Dean's eyes went as thin as slits as he glared up at her. "Go to hell, Bitch."

Before the words had even totally left his mouth, Dean sat straight up and was back in the world of darkness again. His heart raced in his chest and his head still throbbed from where he'd felt the pain moments ago. He gasped and sucked in huge gulps of air as he tried to recover his breath. He couldn't breathe, and that alone still had his heart racing. He finally was able to get enough breath into his lungs that he was able to start thinking again.

It had been a dream. The whole thing. It had felt so incredibly real. He could still feel how soft the baby's skin had been when he'd touched it. He could still smell the smells of the dinner that "Sadie" had cooked for them. Tears stung his eyes as the reality hit him that it had been a dream. He'd finally seen Sadie again, and it had only been a dream.


	12. Rant and Rave

Ruby and Sam stood facing each other, each with their arms crossed over their chest. The tension in the room was something you could cut with a knife. Neither of them refused to back down, and the argument was getting ugly. Ruby was on the verge of using her demonic powers against him, and Sam was ready to lock her in a devil's trap just to keep her from going.

"It's too dangerous," he spat at her.

"I'm a demon, Sam! It's not like they can really do anything to me!" she spat back.

Neither of these were new arguments. They'd been going around in circles for hours now - ever since Ruby had said she was going to summon the crossroads demon and find out about the soldier demon that ran loose.

"I should have never told you. I should have just gone in the middle of the night. Then we wouldn't be having this argument."

"If you would just stop being so stubborn and let me go with you, we wouldn't be having this argument. It would already be over and we'd have the information."

"Sam, you're not listening to me. Lilith wants you dead. Don't you get that? If any of them working for her get a chance, they will put a bullet in your brain! Period! There won't be any negotiations, no begging for mercy. They will just kill you and go on. They won't even think twice about it."

Sam faltered slightly on his stance, but he quickly recovered and went stoic again. "And what do you think they're going to do to you - especially if they find out you're asking in order to help me and Dean?"

Ruby decided it was time to try another tactic. She softened her expression and released her stance. She took a step forward and put both her hands on Sam's arms. She looked up at him with the eyes of a woman - a real woman - one who could feel and love and wanted to be loved. It hadn't been all that long since she'd been a human. She did still remember what all those emotions were. "Sam," she started with her voice low and sweet. "They aren't going to hurt me. They know they'd be risking too much if they did. Besides, I do have some leverage with them. If worse comes to worst, I can always fight my way out."

Sam felt himself slip a little at her touch. There was something electrifying about the feel of her hands on his skin, even just his arm. He knew as he looked down at her that he would eventually cave.

Before either of them had a chance to say anything else, the door burst open and Bobby - looking haggard and scraped up from head to toe - stumbled inside. Sam immediately broke free from Ruby and ran over to help Bobby inside.

"Bobby! What the hell happened?" he asked quickly, concern lacing his voice.

Bobby staggered from the door to the bed and sat down heavily. He watched as Sam went to the small motel bathroom and got a washcloth, drenching it in cold water. He handed it to Bobby and Bobby covered his face with it. The wet cloth against the scratches on his face stung, but felt good at the same time. He took a deep breath before lowering the cloth and pressing it against another wound on his arm, this one bleeding more than the ones on his face.

"While you two bickered about it, I went to the crossroads at the edge of town. She wasn't pleased with my line of questioning."

Sam and Ruby looked at each other in astonishment. "You confronted a crossroad's demon about this? Alone?" Ruby asked incredulously.

Bobby nodded, flinching slightly as he move the cloth from one wound to another. "You two couldn't seem to agree on anything, and we needed answers - fast. So I went alone. You didn't even notice I was gone till I came back."

Sam felt immediately ashamed. He knew that Bobby was right. He known that Bobby was gone, but it hadn't occurred to him to ask where he was. "I'm sorry, Bobby," he said quietly, feeling quite contrite.

Ruby fought the urge to roll her eyes. This moment of male bonding was sweet and all, but they needed to know what Bobby knew. "What did you find out?" she asked, adding just the right amount of worry and concern to her voice to make it sound almost genuine.

Bobby shook his head. "Nothing. Except that they really don't want us to know what is going on."

Ruby threw Sam an "I told you so" look and reached down to grab the keys to the Impala that Sam had been so protective of moments ago but had discarded when Bobby came in. "That's it. I'm going." She held up a hand to stop Sam before he could even speak. "Alone!" she said angrily. Without another word, she stormed out of the room, leaving Sam and Bobby inside.


	13. Give It To Me Straight

Sam paced the floor by the bed as Bobby finally slept. Ruby had been gone for hours and Sam was getting more worried by the minute. If Ruby didn't come back, he really didn't have a chance in hell of finding Dean. The more time that passed without Dean being found, the less likely it was that he'd ever see his brother alive again.

He bit nervously at the end of his thumb nail, a habit he'd never really done before, but for some reason, had picked up in Dean's absence. He thought about Dean and what might be happening to him, and the fear that trickled down his spine left Sam feeling cold. He crossed the room and cranked up the thermostat another few degrees, even though before he'd finally passed out, Bobby had been complaining about being hot in the room. Sam resumed his pacing, unsure of what else to do.

Sam had just about reached the point of stealing Bobby's car to go to the crossroads himself to find Ruby when finally there came a knock at the door. He bolted across the room and jerked open the door. Relief flooding his entire being when he saw her standing on the other side of the door. She didn't look any worse for wear as she walked past him into the room, but her eyes held a new haunted look that Sam couldn't remember seeing before in her.

Ruby walked in slowly, not stopping until she reached the unoccupied bed on the far side of the room. She sat down facing the wall, with her back to Bobby, and she bent forward, cuping the back of her neck with her hands.

"Ruby, what happened?" Sam asked quietly as he crouched down before her. His hands wrapped around her arms as he tried to get her to sit up and look at him. "Ruby?"

After what felt like a long time, Ruby did finally sit up, but she couldn't look Sam in the eye. Whatever she'd seen out there, it had her freaked, and that was a fact that left Sam feeling even more uneasy than he had before.

"I think I know how to find Sadie," she said quietly. She didn't say any more than that, though. Sam didn't need to know the truth of what she'd seen and learned tonight. The truth would come out soon enough. Right now, they needed to find Sadie. It was the only way to save Dean - and saving Dean was quite possibly the only way to stop what was coming.

She finally looked at Sam, trying to force the haunted look from her eyes. She stood up and walked over to the desk, opening his laptop and punching the power button. She sat down in the chair to wait for it to power up.

"Ruby. Aren't you going to tell me anything about what happened out there?"

Ruby shook her head slowly as she stared at the screen. "No," she said definitively as she waited for the computer to boot up.

"Ruby!" Sam snapped from beside her.

Ruby looked up at Sam, a flash of anger covering the rest of the emotions reflected in her dark eyes. "No, Sam! I'm not telling you anything more than you need to know. Period. So drop it!"

Sam was taken aback at first by her anger, but he realized quickly that it was her way of dealing with it. Whatever had happened out there, she wasn't ready to share it yet. He wasn't sure why that surprised him, but it did. Ruby - the demon herself - was scared. The thought intrigued him, but he wouldn't push her on it. He decided instead to sit quietly beside her and watch over her shoulder as she began punching keys and pulling up web pages and hacking into secret systems that even he hadn't known existed.

Two hours later, she was still clicking away at keys while Sam now once again paced the floor behind her. She wasn't much closer to finding Sadie than she'd been when they'd started, but she was determined not to give up. She knew that Sadie was behind the cryptic emails the boys had been getting, and Ruby was using every corner of her brain she possibly could to try to trace the origin of the emails.

----------

"Sam. Sam! Wake up!" Ruby shook Sam's shoulders as she tried to rouse him from the sleep held slipped into hours ago.

Sam at first didn't budge, then suddenly sat straight up on the bed. He looked around the room quickly and tried to blink the sleep from his eyes. Bobby was still asleep on the other bed and Ruby sat on the bed beside Sam, and expectant look on her face.

"I found her," she said without preamble.

Okay, Sam was awake now. He stood up quickly and followed Ruby over to the table where papers covered most of the surface and almost every one had long lines of scribbled notes. Most were in English, but a few were in languages and even symbols that he didn't recognize. He looked at the screen over her shoulder as she looked up at him.

"You won't believe this, but if this is right, she's really only about 45 miles from here. She covered her tracks better than well, and it took a long time to get through all of the shadows and server jumps. I can tell you for sure that she did NOT want you to find her."

Sam looked at the map on the screen and sure enough, the town that had a small graphic of a push pin stuck in it was no more than 45 miles from them. "But you're sure this is her? I mean, I don't want to burst through the door and find some 8 year old kid playing chess online."

Ruby looked back at the screen and nodded her head. "Unless I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque," she started, quoting her favorite line from countless episodes of Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes, "Sadie is right there." Ruby handed him a small piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.

Sam looked down at the paper in his hands and felt his heart start to race a little. It was finally happening. It had been almost a week since he'd switched places with Dean, and finally, they had a lead on some answers. "Let's go!" Sam said quickly as he reached for his jacket and the keys to the Impala.

Ruby was slightly surprised by that. "You want me to come with you?" she asked wearily.

Sam stopped and looked back at her. "Yeah, I do. I don't know what I might be up against with her, and it would probably be good to have you there."

Ruby stared at Sam for a long time before finally nodding her head and reaching for her own jacket. Sam smiled slightly at her, grateful that she was coming with him. He quickly scribbled a note to Bobby and left it on the table beside Bobby's head. Ruby and Sam headed out together, the two of them silent as Sam stopped for gas and then hit the highway leading to the town on the map.


	14. Nights of Love

Sam stood in the semi-damp grass just outside the living room and watched. If he hadn't already known the truth, he'd never have believed his eyes. Sadie sat in the room, a large, oversized rocking chair moving slowly back and forth as she pushed against the floor with her socked foot. The child that lay curled up on the chair beside her was a spitting image of Dean. Even when the small boy moved slightly and made this slight little "o" shape with his mouth, his dimples came through plain as day. If Sam hadn't known better, he would have thought for a moment that he'd stepped into a time warp somehow and found himself at home 20 years ago.

Ruby stood by the door and had to nearly hiss at Sam to get his attention. "Come on!" She motioned quickly for him to get over beside her so they could do what needed to be done. Sam glanced back inside, feeling a pang of guilt for what he was about to do to this child's life. He nodded at Ruby and she reached out a finger to ring the doorbell.

A look of alarm shot across Sadie's face as the boy beside her stirred at the sound of the bell. Sam could tell just by the expression on her face that she wasn't expecting a visitor, and that knowledge alone had her senses on high alert. She looked for a minute like she might scoop up the child and run, but finally, she moved slowly in the direction of the door.

Sam moved quickly from his spot under the window to the doorway. He needed his face to be the first one that Sadie saw. He took a deep breath as he heard he coming closer to the door and then could see movement behind the frosted glass embedded in the wooden door. There was a slight hesitation before the door was finally pulled open and Sadie appeared in the doorway. She froze when she saw Sam's face and the look that crossed her features was a mixture of about 20 different emotions all rolled into one. Sam knew that expression well, and he hated the fact that he'd ben the one to put on her face.

"Hi Sadie," he said quietly.

"Mom?" A young, scratchy voice rang out from the room Sadie had just vacated and Sadie glanced over her shoulder, obviously unsure of what to do next. "Go back to sleep, Baby. It's okay." Sadie looked back at Sam and let out a defeated sigh. "So I'm guessing that because Ruby is standing behind you, that she's the one that tracked me down?"

Sam glanced over his shoulder at Ruby. She'd been hiding in the shadows, but it was apparent she hadn't been doing a very good job of it. Ruby stepped out into the circle of light being cast down from the porch light. "You were a hard woman to find."

"Mom? Who's that?" The voice, pitchy and rough from a cold or at the very least, a sore throat, was much closer and it was only then that Sam and Sadie realized that the boy that had moments ago been curled up in the warmth of his mother's lap had joined them at the door.

Sadie bent down and scooped up the boy in her arms before she reached out and unlocked the handle to the screen door that had separated her from Sam. "Come on in. Close the door behind you." Sadie turned and headed back into the living room with the boy.

Sam didn't hesitate to reach out and reach for the handle, pulling the door open and stepping aside as Ruby entered the home first. Sam was careful to lock the screen and flip the deadbolt of the wooden door into place before walking into the living room where Sadie was wrapping a blanket around the boy and setting him on the couch.

"This is Sam. Sam and I were friends when I met your daddy. Sam, this is John."

Sam looked at Sadie with surprise on his face. "John?" he asked, wondering the obvious.

Sadie shrugged her shoulders as she looked at Sam. "I wasn't about to name him after my father."

Sam gave her a lopsided, unsure grin as he walked over and reached out a hand to the boy. "Hi John. It's nice to meet you."

The boy glanced at Sadie first, as if asking permission before he pulled his arm out of the blanket she'd wrapped around him. He reached out and shook Sam's hand. "It's nice to meet you, too, Sam," his scratchy voice squeaked out. As soon as the words were totally out, a series of rib-rattling coughs came from the small child.

Sadie turned away from Sam, dismissing both him and Ruby for the moment. She ran to the kitchen and came back a minute later with a cup and a bottle of what was obviously a child's medicine. The pink liquid was unmistakable to Sam, and immediately brought back memories of a time when he'd been sick as a boy and the lady who owned the hotel they were staying at had taken him to the doctor. Sam watched as Sadie quickly gave John a drink and once the coughs died down, gave him a dose of the pink liquid. Once the medicine had been taken, Sadie forced him to lay down on the couch as she pulled the blanket tighter around him.


	15. Down on Devil Street Part 2

"Mary! Have you seen my tool box? You know, the big green one that Dean gave me for Father's Day?"

Mary Winchester tucked a strand of her long blond hair behind her ear and looked up from the pile of bell peppers she was chopping for the dinner she was preparing. She looked towards the ceiling and called back up the stairs to her husband, "Look in the garage behind Trinity's baby boxes. She was digging in them last weekend and didn't put them up yet."

By the time John Winchester entered the kitchen, Mary had dumped the pile of pepper into the melted butter in the deep skillet she was using for the dinner. "What in the world was Trinity looking for?" John asked gruffly. He stopped on the opposite side of the small kitchen island counter from Mary and his large hands seemed to take up so much space as he leaned forward and rested against the counter.

Mary glanced up at him as she turned back to the island to retrieve the onion she'd already chopped before the peppers. She spoke over her shoulder as she added the onion to the pan in front of her. "She's doing a project for school and needed some of her old baby clothes. She may need more later so I told her she could leave the boxes down for now, but she knows to put them up as soon as she's done."

John gave Mary a hard look, but tried not to let it linger on his face long enough for Mary to actually see it. He knew better than that. The military had done its job well of turning into a hard man. Mary had done her well of softening him up. More often than not, the two sides of the man warred hard within him. Still, he refused to let Mary see the frowns that crossed his face when he disapproved of one of their children's behaviors.

"I saw that," Mary said with a smile without turning around. She always saw John's expressions even when he thought she didn't. Eyes on the back of her head wasn't exactly accurate to describe how she knew; she just knew. She knew John better than even he knew himself. "She's going to clean it up, John. Come on. You know Trinity as well as I do, and you know she would never do anything to disappoint you."

John's face straightened the second Mary called him on the expression. The rough and tumble, hard-core Marine actually found himself feeling sheepish when Mary called him on his often too harsh ways of thinking. He felt the color rise up in his cheeks, but he quickly pushed it away. "I know," was his only response before he finally pushed away from the counter and left Mary alone in the kitchen as he walked to the garage to look for the elusive tool box.

Mary smiled knowingly as she watched John retreat from the room. She really loved to watch him walk away. She still remembered the way her heart had skipped a beat when she'd first met him. It still did the same thing now. She shook her head as she turned back to the food before her.

The door to the garage opened again and Dean, covered from head to toe in grease, dirt, and motor oil, sauntered into the room. A crash and a loud curse from John and both Mary and Dean looking towards the door Dean had just closed. They looked at each other and both let out a snort of laughter. Dean walked over and, being careful to keep his soiled clothes from touching his mother's clean clothes, leaned over and gave Mary a kiss on the cheek. "Chicken Curry again?" he asked with a smirk even as he reached out for a piece of the diced chicken and popped it into his mouth.

"It's what your sister wanted. She's got some big news to tell everybody tonight, and I promised to make her whatever she wanted for dinner."

Dean raised his eyebrows and leaned against the counter a few feet away from Mary. "Oh yeah? She make another A on a test? Big deal. I still think you and Dad really adopted her and Sam. Their brains are most definitely not Winchester brains."

Mary without warning, rolled up the dish towel that had been draped over her shoulder and snapped it quickly, popping Dean on the leg. "Get your dirty backside off my counter." She laughed at the expression on Dean's face as he jumped away from the counter. "And those two are definitely more Campbell than Winchester." She grinned at Dean over her shoulder at the reference of her maiden name.

"So you're not going to tell me her big news?" Dean asked as he snagged one more piece of chicken and ate it quickly.

"Stay out of the chicken! And no, I'm not going to tell you. It's Trinity's news to tell."

Dean laughed when Mary snapped at him about the chicken. It was the same thing they did pretty much every night. "Okay, okay," he said as he crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator and opened it, pulling out a bottle of golden colored beer. He opened one and set it on the counter beside the fridge, then reached in and pulled out another one. "I'm going to shower." Dean left the first opened beer sitting on the counter for his father to retrieve in a moment. Another daily ritual. Dean took the stairs two at a time and circled the landing at the top. Yeah, he was twenty-one years old and living at home. His situation was unique, though.

The cancer that had tried desperately to ravage his body last year was now in remission. They couldn't really call him "cured" exactly, because there would forever be a chance that the tumors they'd found around his spine could return at any time. For now, though, he was healthy and doing well. He'd moved back into his parents' home when he'd first been diagnosed with the cancer, and now he was in the process of working to get enough money saved up to be able to buy a house down the street.

Dean stripped out of the soiled work clothes he wore and dropped them into the plastic basket where only his work clothes went so as not to ruin his good clothes.. He walked into the his bathroom wearing only a dark blue pair of boxer shorts with various pictures of Marvin the Martian from Looney Tunes printed all over them. He stopped in front of the mirror as he often did and stared at his reflection. The scar on the right side of his chest was fading more and more every day, but the pale and slightly bunched up scar stood out against his otherwise tanned skin. He knew the spot where the chemotherapy tube had once been embedded under his skin would always look slightly different from the rest of his smooth skin. It would forever remind him of just how lucky he'd been. He knew how easily he could have died from the disease. He was one of the lucky ones to actually beat it. The pale scar was the only evidence now that anything had ever been wrong with him.

Dean reached up his left hand and slowly ran his fingers over the rough ripple of skin. He still wondered what Angela would think she finally saw it. He'd told her about it on their first date, but even now after two months of dating, she had yet to see it. He knew she would eventually. He really liked her and was taking his time with her. They hadn't even come close to having sex yet. This was definitely a first for Dean. He'd never been with a girl in his life without sleeping with her by the second date – the third at the very latest. Angela was different, though. She was special. For the first time in his life, he could see himself actually settling down and getting married. He wasn't sure what it was about this girl that was so different from the others he'd dated in the past. There was definitely something, though. He'd told her more about his life than he ever had before. He wanted to know everything there was to know about her, as well. She fascinated him in ways he couldn't describe. His parents had met her – another first – and they loved her. Trinity and Sam loved her. Hell, even Lily, Sam's dog, loved her and that dog didn't like anybody except Sam. Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly before finally turning towards the shower.

An hour later, the entire Winchester clan sat around the kitchen table. Even Angela had joined them at Trinity's request. John said a quick blessing over the meal as he always did before they all dug in. The Chicken Curry was Trinity's favorite, but the whole family loved it. The conversations around the table were lively and plentiful, as always. There were at least four overlapping conversations going on at once.

The meal was very nearly over before Trinity finally agreed to tell the family the news she'd called them all together to tell. The young blond who was a spitting image of her mother stood up and clinked her fork against her water glass to get the attention of the talkative bunch around her.

"Okay Everybody. As you all know, I've been writing a bunch of short stories about our family, about Dad's military days, about the neighborhood, stuff like that." Everyone around the table nodded and looked at Trinity to see where she was going with this. Trinity took a deep breath and smiled broadly. "Well, last month I sent a few of them to a friend of Mom's. I didn't tell anyone 'cause I didn't know what was going to happen. Well…" Trinity again smiled and looked at her father, wanting to see his reaction most of all. "I got a letter today, and the stories are going to be printed in a new hometown series in Woman's World Magazine! A new story will be printed every month!"

The entire table erupted with cheers and congratulations directed at Trinity. John was the only silent one at the table. His expression was unreadable, and Trinity found herself holding her breath as she continued to watch him. "What do you think, Daddy?" she asked with uncertainty.

Everyone at the table got quiet as they all looked at John. The collective question on everyone's mind was "what if he says no?".

John stayed in his chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin for a moment before he finally took deep breath and stood up. Without a word, he circled the table to where Trinity stood still holding her breath. He looked into her eyes for what felt to the seventeen year old like forever before finally a light appeared in his eyes and a smile grew on his lips. "I'm _so_ proud of you, Baby." John reached out and pulled Trinity to him tightly as tears filled his eyes.

Trinity wrapped her arms around her father laughed as she cried and hugged the man who'd inspired most of her stories. "Thank you, Daddy!"

John pulled back and looked at Trinity, before his smile began to change to a more evil looking smile. "I'll give you one more story to write about," he said, his voice suddenly very deep and strange sounding. John blinked his eyes and when he opened them again, the orbs were nothing but solid black pools that by appearance alone were pure evil.

…

Dean's eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright on the floor. The small light that had finally been turned on inside the room cast a dim and eerie glow over the whole of the room. Dean's heart pounded in his chest and he sucked in large gulps of air as he tried to catch his breath.

It had all been a dream. Not a djinn induced fantasy, but a true, honest-to-God dream. Everything had seemed so real, though. Mom and Dad were alive and happy. He and Sam had a sister. It all felt so real! And then John's eyes – blacker than night. That was a sight Dean had seen before in real life. It was something he knew he'd never forget.

It took several minutes for Dean to calm himself down. He leaned back and laid his head against the wall. He stared up at the ceiling, made of the same solid material as the floor and walls, and tears began to pool in his eyes. He was losing faith that Bobby and Sam would be able to find him. He didn't know how long he'd been here, but it felt like forever. He truly was starting to believe that he was going to die inside this "cell".


	16. No More Lies

Sam didn't have time for lengthy conversations about London and everything that had happened there and since then. He needed to get to Dean, and fast. He had no idea what the demon was doing to him, and the longer they went without finding him, the more Sam worried.

"Sadie, I need to know how to find Dean. Right now, that's all that matters."

Sadie glanced at John, now sleeping soundly on the couch. She knew that her son had more to do with Dean's disappearance than Dean did, but how did she explain all this to Sam without telling him the full truth? Perhaps it was finally time for full disclosure, but Sadie wasn't entirely ready to go there yet. She took a deep breath, and without a word to Sam, went to the couch and picked up John, blanket and all. She carried the boy down the small hallway to his bedroom and laid him gently in his bed. She watched with a sad smile as he licked his lips and settled against the pillow all while still asleep. Her poor baby boy had been through so much confusion already, and she knew that there was only more to come. It really broke her heart that he was paying the price now for what she'd once been.

Sadie flipped on the night light beside the small bed and left the room, leaving the door cracked open slightly just in case he needed her. She returned to the living room, looking from Ruby to Sam. She knew that Sam needed answers, but unfortunately, there weren't many that she could give. "I don't know how much help I'll be on the matter of finding Dean. I don't have the… _abilities_ I once had."

Sam's frustration was ready to bubble over. He looked to Ruby who only shrugged her shoulders at him. She was just as confused as he was on that subject. "What do you mean, Sadie? You're half-demon. How do you lose that?"

"The same way you've become it, Sam!" she snapped at him. "It was a choice I had to make, and I made it. I hated the demon half of me. I always have. I never wanted this life."

Sam felt like he'd been slapped in the face. How in the hell did Sadie know about him? No one knew about all that except Ruby. Not even Dean had a clue what Sam was doing to himself. He tried not to let the emotions he felt play on his face, but one thing Sam didn't have much of was a poker face. He frowned at Sadie, but didn't respond to that particular issue yet. Again, it was something that could wait until after they found Dean. "How did you do that?" he asked, forcing the conversation back onto Sadie.

"I made a deal with a demon, much like you've done," she said quietly before looking over her shoulder at Ruby. "My last night in London, before I left you guys, I went back to the crossroads where Dean and I had _talked_ to Sasha. I gave Lilith what she wanted even more than Dean – my powers. With my demon powers melded with hers, she would have been very nearly strong enough to overthrow Lucifer. Lilith doesn't want to let Lucifer out of his prison so he can rule the earth. She wants to take his place and be the one in charge. With my powers, she would almost be able to do that."

Sam could hardly believe what he was hearing. Lilith could potentially be even more powerful than Lucifer by now? That thought sent chills down his spine. If she was growing in power, would he be able to stop her even with Ruby's help? He tried not to let the thoughts overwhelm him just quite yet, though. There were more important things to deal with at the moment. "What was the deal, Sadie? You gave up your powers to Lilith in exchange for what?"

Sadie looked at Sam like he was crazy. She looked to Ruby expecting to see a playful smile on the little bitch's face. Surely they were teasing her. Sam had to know what had happened that night in London by now. "You're joking, right? Surely you know what happened."

Sam shook his head and again a frown creased his brow. "No, Sadie. I don't know. What happened?"

Sadie stared at him a moment longer before it finally really sunk in that he didn't know what she was talking about. "You really don't know," she said out loud, more to hear the words spoken than necessarily speaking to anyone. Sadie sat back on the couch, sinking into the soft cushions and sighing heavily. "Okay, well – it's a long story, and there's a lot to it, but the bottom line is – I gave up my powers to save Dean from his hell contract. I made sure that Lilith let him out of it."

Sam stared at Sadie in amazement. "What the fuck are you talking about, Sadie? Dean wasn't let out of his contract. Not really. It was delayed a few weeks, but he still was hunted down by hell hounds and drug off to hell!" Sam was furious and his voice rose louder as he neared the end of the statement. "He spent four months down there!" he shouted, temporarily forgetting and honestly not really caring about the sleeping boy just down the hall.

Sadie was on her feet in an instant. She shushed Sam and held her hands up in a gesture of 'be quiet' all at the same time. "What the fuck are _you_ talking about, Sam?!" she asked angrily, throwing his own question back at him. "I made sure of it! Dean was let out of his contract!"

Sam shook his head, the soft mop of hair that was longer than he liked bouncing around as he did. "No, Sadie. He wasn't! Believe me. I was the one who had to learn to live without him."

Sadie stood in the middle of the small room fuming. Imagine that. A demon had lied to her - and not just any demon – the spokesperson for Lilith herself. The words that Sasha had spoken to her that night had been binding – a contract of her own that was supposed to be unbreakable. Sadie's internal anger grew and for a moment, the blackness of her past very nearly showed up in her eyes – the way a demon's eyes were supposed to be. They didn't quite make it, but they came as close as humanly possible.

"Sam, I need you to look after John for me," Sadie said stoically as she reached down and picked up her tennis shoes from the floor by the front door. She bent over as she slipped them onto her feet one at a time.

"What? Where the hell are you going?" Sam snapped at her as he reached out to grab her arm in attempt to stop her.

Sadie spun around, jerking her arm as she did and yanking it free of Sam's grasp. Her eyes, still dark with anger, very nearly shot daggers at him. "I'm going to find out where Dean is. You and Ruby stay here. And I mean it. Don't leave this house. Ruby won't be able to anyway, seeing as how the whole house is one big devil's trap. You stay here with John, and don't let anyone or anything anywhere near my son."

With that, Sadie stormed out off the small house and before Sam could even think about protesting further, she was in her car and pulling out of the driveway with a screech of tires.


	17. Gotta Make A Change

Sam continued to pace the living floor, just as he'd been doing for the past four hours. Sadie had been gone for way too long, and Sam was certain that she was dead by now. After all, if she wasn't a demon anymore, she definitely could be dead. The mortality of it all was driving him crazy. Dean was trapped, possibly dead himself – though Sam truly believed he would have felt something if Dean were dead. Bobby was hurt and still at the hotel. Sam had talked to him on the phone shortly after Sadie left. Bobby had been furious at him for going after Sadie alone, but Sam had convinced him it was the only way to save Dean. Now, there he was in Sadie's home, waiting not-so-patiently for anything. Ruby had camped out at the kitchen table with a book of Sadie's – another something that Sam couldn't make out – similar to the one she'd had in London.

But Sam just couldn't stop the pacing. As long as Dean was missing, he really wasn't sure he'd ever be able to stop pacing. He reached for the tv remote, trying once again to distract himself when a small voice startled him. "Sam? Where's my mom?"

Sam quickly turned off the tv and walked over to John. He scooped the small boy up in his arms and carried him down the hall to his room. "She just had to go run an errand. She'll be back soon. What are you doing up?" Sam asked as he laid John back in his bed and pulled the covers back up over the boy.

"I had a bad dream and I couldn't go back to sleep." John looked up at Sam with tears in his eyes that were so much like Dean's, it almost took Sam's breath away. The boy was no doubt Dean's son.

"Well, that's the great thing about dreams," Sam started to say quietly. "Dreams will eventually end, and you can wake up, and when you go back to sleep, it's a new dream."

John glanced away, refusing to look at Sam for a moment before he finally raised his hazel eyes to Sam. "But what if it's the same dream every time?" John's voice was so quiet that Sam had to strain to hear him.

Sam glanced back over his shoulder at Ruby who'd just joined them and had stopped right inside the doorway. The shared look between the two was an indication to each other that they were both thinking the same thing. Sam turned back to John and reached out a hand to smooth back the hair on the boy's forehead. "Do you want to tell me about your dream, John? Ruby and I here are pretty good at guessing what dreams are about. Maybe we can help."

John looked from Sam to Ruby then back to Sam. He wasn't sure he could really trust this man, but his mother had said they were friends, right? Sam knew his father, so he couldn't be all bad, could he? John licked his lips and chewed on his bottom lip for a minute before he finally began to speak. "It's always the same. Dark and rainy, but my mom and I are always someplace different. It's like a hotel room or something, but it's always a different place. She's holding me behind her and screaming at someone on the other side of the door. She keeps telling them they can't have me." John stopped for a minute as tears moistened his eyes. His small hands held tight to the comforter on his bed and he began to twist it nervously as his story continued. "After a few minutes, the door flies open and a person is standing there. It's always a different person, but they always have the same eyes." John stopped talking then as the memories of his nightmares flooded his mind. The tears began to slip free from his eyes and spill down his cheeks.

Again, Sam looked back at Ruby. She wore a frown on her face, the same as Sam. They both knew where this was going, but Sam still prayed that he was wrong. When it was obvious that John wasn't going to say anymore, Sam finally asked the question he was dreading the answer to. "What's wrong with their eyes, John?"

John shook his head at first. There was no way he could really describe them. Just the thought of saying it out loud scared him.

Sam again reached out and smoothed back the hair at the boy's temple. His free hand wrapped around John's shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "It's okay, John. Ruby and I are right here, and nothing can hurt you with the two of us here. Okay? We won't let anything hurt you."

John again looked at Ruby and Sam before finally closing his eyes. His voice again was so quiet that Sam had to lean forward to be able to hear the boy's words. "They're black," he said simply.

Sam felt the rush of fear rush over him like a tidal wave. He closed his own eyes and his head fell forward. Dammit! John – the son of a hunter and a half demon – was dreaming about demons coming after him. Sam opened his eyes and tried to force the look of fear and worry from his face before raising his head to look at John again. The boy stared at Sam, his own worry and fear etched on his little boy features. "What does it mean, Sam? Who are the black-eyed people?"

Sam took a deep breath and tried to offer John a smile. Sam knew exactly who they were, but how much could he really tell John? After all, technically, the boy was only five years old. He still wasn't sure how that worked, but it was definitely something he would ask Sadie about later. "I think those people are just your fears. You worry about someone taking you away from your mom – or her away from you. Do you worry about that, John?"

Ruby scoffed at Sam's assessment of the dream. If it were up to her, she'd tell the boy the truth. He had a right to know, after all. They were demons he was dreaming about, and they were after him. Period. There was no sugar-coating that truth, but there was "bleeding-heart-Sam" – trying his damnedest to do exactly that.

John nodded but didn't verbalize his answer. His eyes shot to Ruby when he heard the sound that escaped her. She thought he was crazy. He knew he shouldn't have told them about his dream!

Sam shot Ruby a "shut up" look before he turned back to John. He again squeezed John's shoulder before he moved John a little to the left. Sam turned around and sat back down on the bed, this time sitting beside John. Sam draped his arm over the top of John's pillow and stretched his legs out on the bed in front of him. "Ya know what I think you need? I think you need a good bedtime story to fall asleep to – so you won't have to think about the bad guys."

Now Ruby's interest was perked up a little bit. What was Sam up to here? She leaned back against the wall and watched the two who occupied the small bed. For some reason, she just couldn't imagine Sam telling some cookie cutter story. If it were Dean, she could just see it now – Goldilocks and The Three Bears – he'd scar the kid for life with the demonic twists and turns the story was sure to have. But Sam surprised her.

"Well, John. Has your mom ever told the story about Merlin?" Sam looked down at John and when John shook his head no, Sam gave the boy a playfully shocked expression. "Never?! Well, you definitely need to know about Merlin. Do you know who King Arthur is?"

Again, John shook his head that no, he didn't know. He smiled broadly, though, and sat up a little more, looking up at Sam as Sam began a lively and exciting story about Arthur, King of Camelot, and the wise old magician that befriended Arthur at a young age and helped the boy learn how to be a man.

Ruby actually found herself smiling at the story, thinking to herself how funny it was to see Sam Winchester telling a bedtime story to a little boy – just as if the night were as normal as Sam ultimately wished it was. She stayed in the doorway and listened for several minutes before finally leaving the two boys to their story and returning to the book on the kitchen table. There were definitely more interesting stories in that book than what Sam was weaving in the bedroom. She was pretty certain that Sadie had never told John these stories, either.

It was nearly four more hours later when Ruby was standing once again in the doorway to the bedroom, watching John and Sam in the bed. The two had both fallen asleep hours ago, Sam with his arm still wrapped around John and John now curled up with his head on Sam's lap. She'd been watching them, remembering what it was like to be human - remembering for a moment the family of her own she'd once had – thinking to herself that this is exactly what it would be like if Sam had a normal life and was a father. She heard the sounds of a car pull into the driveway. She made it to the living room just seconds before the door to Sadie's small home finally opened and Sadie spilled inside. Blood covered her face and hands, and Ruby was at her side in an instant. "What the hell happened to you?"

Sadie groaned in pain as Ruby helped her to the couch and went to the bathroom for a wash cloth. She went the towel in the sink and returned to Sadie's side and began to wipe the blood off her face. It was then that she began to realize that the blood wasn't Sadie's. In fact, there wasn't a visible injury anywhere on Sadie's face nor hands. "Okay, you really gotta tell me. What happened?"


	18. It's Time

Sadie and Ruby sat on the couch as Ruby tried in vain to wipe the blood from Sadie's face and hands. Sadie wouldn't have it, though. She fought Ruby at every swipe of her face, and finally Sadie grabbed the towel from Ruby's hands. She held the wet cloth over her face for a long time, just breathing in air moistened by the towel. She finally wiped her face as much as she could and got to her feet. She was a bit wobbly at first and she reached out a hand to Ruby for balance. Once she was steady, she looked at Ruby before walking down the hallway to her son's room.

The sight of Sam and John asleep in the boy's bed brought tears to her eyes. Sadie despised the fact that she was going to have to tear her son's life apart. Things had been so confusing for him already. Just the fact that he'd aged five times as fast as any other kid had been hard enough to deal with. Luckily, the few months since he'd been born had gone by quickly enough, and John really didn't know yet just how different he truly was. Sadie absolutely hated the fact that he was quickly going to find out.

Sadie took a deep breath and blinked back the tears that filled her eyes. She entered the room as quietly as possibly, trying not to wake John. She reached out a hand and touched Sam's shoulder. He moved incredibly fast, and before she even really saw it, Sam's hand shot up and wrapped around her wrist, squeezing hard enough to break the bone if he wanted to. His eyes flew open and for a moment, had a wild, alert look to them.

"Sam!" she hissed as the pain shot up her arm. "It's me!"

It took Sam a moment to realize who it was that was standing over him, but he finally did release the vice-grip he had on her wrist. She pulled back, rubbing the spot with her other hand. "Come on. We need to talk."

Sam only nodded before moving off the bed. He moved slowly, shifting John off his lap and onto the pillow. John stirred only once, and Sam reached down to touch the boy's forehead. Something about that simple contact made John shift right back into sleep mode. It had worked on Sam when he was young, too. He felt a tinge in his heart as he thought about John and what the boy's life was going to be like - considering the parents he had. He licked his lips and let out a small sigh before following Sadie out of the room to the kitchen.

They all sat down at the table while Sadie still babied the wrist that was already starting to bruise slightly. "Damn Sam. You can really hurt a girl's feelings with a grip like that."

Sam blushed slightly at the comment. He felt bad for freaking out on her. It was pure instinct. "Sorry," he said with a crocked smile.

Sadie brushed him off and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table in front of them. "Okay, here's the deal. I think I know where Dean is, BUT!" she interjected quickly, knowing ahead of time what Sam's reaction to her statement would be. "we need backup to go in there. And lots of it. We won't be able to fight them all off and get Dean out of there alive."

Sam started to speak the moment the words escaped her lips, but she cut him off quickly. The rest of her statement was not so reassuring. "Sadie, we don't have any backup. You know as well as anyone the kind of life we lead. It's not exactly like we can call in the PTA to come help us!"

Sadie shot Sam a "go to hell" look. "I am aware of that, Sam. Is Bobby around? I know he can make a few calls." Sadie had never met Bobby, but she knew all about the man. She'd certainly heard enough about him from Sam and Dean last summer in London.

Sam glanced at Ruby with a slightly worried expression. "Bobby's... around," he finally answered. He thought about Bobby, probably still passed out back at the hotel. "He went out last night and tumbled with a crossroads demon to try to find you."

Sadie sucked in a sharp breath. "What? Is he crazy?" she shot at Sam. "How could he be so stupid?"

Sam stood up quickly, very nearly knocking his chair over. "He was helping us find you, Sadie! And Dean! Dean is missing, remember! Those damned demons have got him, and we didn't know what else to do! Now if you know a way to get to Dean, you better start talking - and fast!"

Sadie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sam wasn't going to be easy to convince of the plan that she was already working out in her mind, but she knew better what had to be done than he did. "Alright, here's what we're going to do now. I'm going to get John and we're going to Bobby. Someone has to protect John during all this. If the demons get to him, it will be all over. You call Bobby right now. Tell him we need all the hunters he can find and we need them here NOW!" Sadie didn't give Sam a chance to argue nor to respond to what she said. She stood up and marched down the hall to her bedroom first, then a moment later, crossed the hall into John's room with two suitcases in her hands.

Sam wanted to argue with her, to demand that she tell him what was going on, but the bottom line was that Sadie was the only person who knew where Dean was and how to get to him. Sam needed her, and he knew that. He stood up slowly and made his way down the hall to the room where Sadie was angrily stuffing clothes from John's closet into the bag. He didn't say anything at first, just reached out a hand and wrapped it around hers that held the bag. "Why don't you let me do this. You can go pack your stuff."

Sadie stilled the moment his hand wrapped around hers, but she didn't look up at him right away. She stayed still for a moment before finally raising her head to look at Sam. "That kid is my life, Sam."

Sam nodded his head and gently took the bag from her. He reached out his other arm and pulled her to him in a hug. He held her tightly against him and rubbed her shoulder. "I know, Sadie. Don't worry. We're gonna protect him. I won't let anything happen to him. I swear to that."

Sadie allowed herself to lean against him for a moment. She wrapped her arms around him and held tight to him. She had to trust him now. She didn't have a choice. If Sam and Ruby could find her, so could the demons she'd been running from for so long. She nodded her head against this shoulder when he spoke about protecting John. She breathed in deeply as she tried to fight the tears. This time, though, she lost the battle and a few slipped slowly down her cheek. She stayed in Sam's hug for several minutes before she finally pulled back and wiped her face with her hands. "We've got to hurry," she said quietly. "We need to get John out of here before the demons track me back here."

Sam released the hug and looked down at her. She was a tough girl, but right now, she seemed so small to him. He nodded his head and circled around her to get into the closet she'd been pulling clothes out of. "I know we do. Go pack your things and we'll go to Bobby. We'll get some more people here, and we'll get John someplace safe."

Less than ten minutes later, the two bags of clothes and a few of Sadie's books were thrown in the back of the car and a still sleeping John had been transferred from his bed to the back seat. Sadie crawled in the back with him, pulling him into her lap and buckling the back seatbelt around them both. Sam and Ruby climbed in front and Sadie gave one last sorrowful look at the house. She'd only been living in it for a few months, but it had begun to feel like a real home to her. It was hard to see it go. She had the strangest feeling in the pit of her stomach that she'd never see that house again.

Sam pulled the car away from the curb and within minutes, was back on the highway and speeding towards the town where they'd left Bobby. They hadn't even reached the city limits when behind them, a loud explosion broke into the night silence and a huge fireball erupted into the sky. Sam watched in the rear view mirror as both Sadie and Ruby turned around to look behind them. Sadie felt tears once again fill her eyes as she turned back towards the front.

"Your house," Ruby said simply. All Sadie could do was nod.


	19. Never Knew

"Where is the boy?"

The dark figure that was cloaked in the shadows of the very badly lit room had asked the same question at least a dozen times now, and every time, the answer was the same. Dean had no idea what he was talking about, and he was starting to get frustrated. "I don't know how many times I have to say it. I don't know what you're talking about."

Again, as all the times before, a hand - if you could really call it that - flew out in anger and struck Dean across the cheek. As all the times before, Dean felt like his face had exploded. There was something about the hits that just made his whole head feel like it was being put through a meat grinder. Dammit, if he survived this at all, he'd have one hell of a headache to deal with.

The thing that was in the room with him – Dean really wasn't sure what to call the thing. It was almost like evil personified. Not really a demon, but not really an evil spirit, either. It was a solid form, but it had no real shape, no real way of identifying what it was. It was just a form, a dark, ugly, unidentifiable form. Whatever it was, though, it could verbalize and it could hit – and hit hard.

Dean spit out the mouthful of blood, and his head rolled forward, his chin very nearly touching his chest. He was trying so hard to hold it together, but the beating that he was getting was rapidly depleting his brain of the ability to think coherent thoughts. He tried once again to reason with the thing, even though he knew it was in vain.

"Look, if you just tell me what the fuck you're talking about, maybe I can help you out here."

The form hovered in front of Dean, its non-existent "eyes" staring at the bloodied Winchester before him. There were no restraints to hold the eldest of two in the seat. None were needed. The spiritual force the dark creature possessed was more than enough to keep Dean exactly where it wanted him to be. Finally, and for the first time since the interrogation had begun, the being spoke something other than the same question it had repeated so many times. "Your son, Dean. Where is your son? I know you know where he is."

Dean's head shot up despite the pain he felt. His eyes, nearly swollen shut now, were as wide as they could possibly be under the circumstances. This thing was crazy! He had no son! Lisa Braeden had assured him beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ben was not his. Dean's body began to shake slightly, appearing at first like he was having some sort of small seizure. But then his lips curled up and a rough, gravelly sounding laughter began to spill out. He grinned as much as he could through the busted lip and sore spots that seemed to cover most of his face. "You're so full of shit!" he spat out. "You've been beating the shit out of me to get information about a kid that doesn't exist. I have no son, Dude."

The being in the room took on an action similar to Dean's. It began to shake slowly at first, then a little more before an awful, evil kind of laughter trickled out. "Oh Dean, you really expect us to believe that you don't know about your own son's existence? If we believed that, even for a second, you might be a free man right now. As it stands, though, you are on your own here. You're only chance of survival is to tell us what we want to know."

Dean felt a trickle of something akin to fear run up his spine. What if they were telling him the truth? What if he really did have a son out there? Was it Ben and Lisa just lied to him? Or was it someone else – a one night stand that he'd never heard from again. Lord knew he'd had enough of those. Any one of the women he'd been with could have gotten pregnant and he'd never have known about it. If they were telling the truth, what did they want with the boy? That thought scared him perhaps more than any other. What in heaven or hell could they possibly want with a child of his, other than to hold it over his head in attempt to make him do their bidding. Surely they wouldn't go through all this trouble of taking Sam, then him, of torturing him like this – just to have a bargaining chip. The demons knew Dean's world better than that. If they wanted a bargaining chip, they wouldn't have released Sam in exchange for him. This boy had to mean something more than even Dean could comprehend right now. If the boy even existed.

"Okay, okay. So, assuming I do know something, what makes you think I'm going to tell you anything?"

Another punch across the face and Dean was certain he'd heard a crack. He could be mistaken, but he knew what bones being broken sounded like by now. The figure above him shook with fury, and its voice echoed off the walls, seeming to come not from the creature, but from hell itself. "Where is the boy?!"

"I don't know!" Dean shouted back, not really caring about the consequences of finally losing the restraint he had on himself. He was sick and tired of being beaten for information that he simply didn't have. "If you want to kill me, then do it already and quit this pansy-ass shit!"

The being hovered over Dean for a moment longer before finally, it began to quiver and move in a way that was really indescribable. Dean watched as the form began to take shape, and within seconds, it assumed the form of Ruby. Dean's eyes grew dark as he stared at the dark headed bitch. He'd never liked Ruby, regardless of what she might have done for them in the past. She was a demon, bottom line. Sam had some big soft spot for her, so Dean had hesitated in sending her straight back to hell, but now… Dean was certain that the figure before him was only using the likeness of Ruby to get under Dean's skin, but there was still that hint of doubt in the back of his mind. What if it wasn't faking? What if the one before him was really Ruby? He was losing his mind, that much was certain. Too much time in a pitch black room was getting to him, and he couldn't see straight enough to know if the girl before him was real or make believe. "Ruby," he said simply, his voice dripping with venom.

"Now Dean. Is that any way to address an old friend? Come on. We've got more of a friendly bond than that, now don't we?"

Dean practically snarled as he looked up at her. "Go to hell, Bitch."

Once again, a hand flew forward and made contact with Dean's cheek. It was definitely different this time – much weaker and more human – but with the other wounds that had already been inflicted, that little girly slap still hurt like hell.

Ruby's hand reached out and grabbed a handful of Dean's short hair and yanked his head back. She leaned over him, inches away from his face with dark, unearthly black eyes staring down at him. "Didn't your mother ever teach you it's not nice to call a girl a bitch?" She gave his hair a hard yank, pulling his head back even further before she released the grip, causing his head to snap forward painfully.

Dean spit out another mouthful of blood. This was really getting old fast. And now they were bringing his mother into the fight. If there was one subject you stayed away from with Dean, it was his mother. "Fuck you! You leave my mother out of this!"

Ruby stood back, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Dean with a sarcastic expression. "Tisk, tisk. Such a potty mouth, Dean. I guess she didn't teach you that it wasn't nice to curse in front of a girl, either."

"You're not a girl," he snarled.

"Aw, Dean. Now you've just hurt my feelings. But you know what? I'm in a forgiving mood. So I'm gonna forget that you're being an asshole, and I'm just going to let you go back to your room, for now. But you think long and hard about whether or not you really know where that boy is. Because I can promise you one simple thing." Ruby again stepped forward and leaned close to Dean. She pressed her cheek against his and her breath was hot on his ear when she whispered, "I will kill everyone you love, starting with your precious Sam, until you tell me where that kid is. It's up to you." With that, Ruby turned her head and ran her tongue along the contours of Dean's ear.

Dean tried to jerk his head away, but before he could even blink, he was once again swallowed in darkness. The invisible, supernatural restraints that had held him down were no more, and he was once again sitting on the hard floor of the cell he was being kept in. He knew he was alone again. He leaned back against the wall, staring up into a blackness that was impossible to penetrate. He didn't even try to look for the flashlight just yet. Tears filled his eyes as he stared upwards, and for the first time in a long time, Dean actually prayed. "God, if you're still there, you gotta get me out of this."


	20. How It's Gotta Be

Thank goodness for the motel they stayed in having a map of the area. This corner of North West Texas wasn't very well documented on any of the maps Bobby had with him. Of course, the map the motel provided wasn't much better, but it was the most up-to-date one they had. Sadie pulled a marker from her bag and circled a particularly out of the way and seemingly empty plot of land. She began to pace in circles around the table as she spoke.

"This entire area is owned by the Travers family, local eccentrics and crazy people, according to the nearest townsfolk. The legend is that during one of the wars when everyone was scared of a nuclear threat, bomb shelters were purchased by the dozens by Jeremiah Travers. He was paranoid to the highest degree and had basically become a hermit, living the smack-dab center of his property. He wouldn't hesitate to kill a man for trespassing, and he was blamed for pretty much any and every missing person's case in the entire area. There was never any poof, of course, but police never stopped suspecting him."

Sadie took a deep breath and continued her circular pacing. "The rumor is that Jeremiah dug a series of intricate tunnels all over his property and placed nearly thirty bomb shelters at various locations covering the entire property. He wanted to be more than prepared for any kind of attack. He purchased non-perishable foods by the truckload and filled many of the shelters to the brim. It's been told that he had stored enough food to feed ten people for close to a hundred years, maybe even longer.

Sadie stopped her pacing and pointed to the North Westernmost part of the circled area. "A freak flood washed out this area of the tunnels nearly twenty years ago. This one here…" She pointed to the North East. "…as you can see, is now a small city. They filled some of the tunnels with cement waterways and made their own sewer system. The bottom half of the area is supposedly still in tact, but no one has been able to prove it. The government even showed some interest, using sonar and all kinds of things to try to find the tunnels and bomb shelters. They wanted to turn the area into a war game area, training soldiers for war before sending them overseas."

Sam glanced at the faces around the room, wondering if they were thinking what he was thinking. It was obvious to him by the looks on their faces that they were, so Sam finally spoke up and asked the obvious. "So if they couldn't find it, what makes you think we can?"

Sadie began to pace again, a nervous habit she'd picked up from Dean back in London, and she cursed him every time she caught herself doing it. "There were more – though less talked about – rumors about Jeremiah. Many believed that he was involved in black magic and devil worship. It's been said that he put some sort of spell or devil's curse over part of the land before he died, giving something like a cloaking device. Only those who practice the same form of black magic will be able to find it at all, let alone the one and only entrance. The government couldn't find it, but you have something they didn't. You have me – and Ruby. We may not be devil worshipers, but we are demons. Well, Ruby is. Me, not so much anymore, but I still have some of my acute senses. Anyway, the point is, if there's a devil's curse hiding the place, we can find what the others couldn't. If the place exists, Dean is there."

Bobby looked at Sam, then over to Sadie. "And you're positive he's there?"

Sadie didn't hesitate. "I'm positive."

Bobby again looked at Sam and gave a small shrug. If Sam was willing to trust and follow her, Bobby would, too. He wasn't sure yet about this whole "devil's curse" idea, but considering all he'd seen in his life, nothing was out of the realm of possibility. "Okay, then," he said with a nod. "So what do we do first?"

Sadie felt a sigh of relief escape her. If Bobby was on board, she knew that any of the others he called in to help would be, too. "First of all, Bobby – call every hunter you know that might be in the area and get them here fast. As many as possible by tomorrow morning. We go in tomorrow afternoon, mid-day. Ruby and I need to go out to where he was taken. We need the exact spot. Sam, you can show us that, right?"

Sadie didn't really expect a response to that. She already knew the answer. Sam knew the exact spot almost like the back of his hand by now, she was guessing, and Sadie just knew he'd show them. "Bobby, someone has to protect John. The demons absolutely cannot get their hands on him."

Bobby nodded quickly. "No problem, I've got a place I can take him. Demons can't get in at all. Kind of like my place up North."

Sam knew the place well, but Sadie didn't. Still, she knew she didn't have the luxury of asking more about it. Time was something they simply didn't have enough of, and every second counted right now.

"Okay. Sam? Ruby? Let's go. The sooner we get out there, the sooner we can find it and get Dean back." Sadie gave no one in the room a chance to argue with her her. She grabbed the keys to the Impala, Dean's precious baby that had gone all the way to London with him, and walked out the door.

Sam gave Bobby a knowing 'I'm worried' look before following Ruby out to the car. Bobby watched the headlights of the Impala until they were out of sight before he glanced over at the sleeping boy. He wasn't sure what role this boy was going to play in all of this, but he had a feeling it wasn't going to be good. He knew it wasn't going to be easy – for any of them. Bobby let out a heavy sigh as he flipped open his cell phone and began dialing numbers.


	21. Everything Is Falling Through

Dean felt torn apart from head to toe as he laid on the floor of his prison cell. Whatever they had done to him, they hadn't gone easy on him. He knew he had at least one broken rib and he was pretty certain that his cheekbone below his right eye was cracked. He could be wrong, of course, but he doubted very seriously that he was.

The pitch black of the room usually made him feel claustrophobic, but after the beating he'd only survived because they needed him to, the darkness was now so very comforting.

Dean drifted off to sleep and let his mind go. How long he slept, Dean really didn't know. Nor did he care. The longer he slept, the less he had to think about what was happening and how the god he'd prayed to hadn't answered yet. He knew that somewhere out there, Sam was looking for him. But what if Sam didn't find him in time? If these demons had their way, Dean thought for sure that he'd already be dead. He replayed the questions over and over again in his mind. They were looking for a boy, and they truly believed that this boy was his son. Probably the hardest part for Dean was that he again was struck with the thought that they could be right!

What if he really did have son out there? What if his blood really did flow through the veins of some poor kid? No matter who the kid's mother was, the poor child didn't stand a chance. Dean knew it was all over for that kid – especially if these guys were looking for him. It was a "him", right? Yes. Yes, it was. The demon had said it was looking for Dean's son.

Dean thought about Ben as he laid there on the floor of the room. The boy had been so much like him, and he'd really thought for a few minutes then how much he would have liked being Ben's father. So if he'd thought he would have loved parenthood for Ben, wouldn't he equally love it with another child? Of course he would! After all, it was what he wanted most in life – normalcy. He wanted a family, right? He just didn't want it like this. He wanted to have a real job – not one where he had lie, cheat, and steal his way through life. He wanted a house, a proper place to raise a child. A kid could only do so much "growing" in the back seat of Daddy's Impala. He was proof positive of that himself.

However, a decision made by his mother just over thirty years ago had prevented him from ever having those things. Sam, too. They'd both been doomed even before they'd been born.

Dean allowed tears to fall now. Tears of anger and sadness and hurt and more anger. He was angry at his mother for making the deal she'd made. He was angry at his father for being so hell-bent on revenge that he'd dragged Dean and Sam both down into the trenches with him. He was angry at whatever woman had his child and didn't tell him about it. Hell, he could have done something! He might have even been able to prevent this moment from coming to pass if he'd known that he had a kid. Dammit! Deep frustration and anger only got worse the longer he thought about the current situation. He'd been held prisoner in this room for however long – he'd lost track long ago – and there was apparently no way out. He was going to die right here in this place. No one would ever know what had really happened to him, and Sam was going to be the one to pay the price for that.

Dean couldn't even think about what was going to happen to Sammy. Sam would always be the one that had to wonder. Dean knew how Sam would react to that. It was the same way he'd react if it were Sam that had been trapped down here. He would never stop searching, never stop looking for his brother. Sam wouldn't, either. He'd spend the rest of his life on a manhunt for Dean, and there would be no possible way for Dean to ever give his brother a moment's peace about what had happened to him.

Dean wanted to punch something. He jumped to his feet and began to pace back and forth, looking and feeling very much like a caged animal. There were parts of his body that ached with every step he took after the beating he'd gotten earlier, but at the moment, the anger that coursed through him threw the rest of what he was feeling off balance. He didn't care that he hurt. In fact, that only fueled his rage. Even though the room was still beyond pitch black, Dean had memorized the layout of the room and knew exactly where he was. He ran over to the heavy metal door and began to kick at it. It didn't matter to him that his wimpy little human kicks wouldn't make the slightest dent in the door. He just had to do something to release some of the emotions that were running around like mad within him.

Dean continued to kick at the door until he'd literally worn himself out. Breathless and more sore than before, he stumbled back a few feet before half sitting, half falling to the floor. It was official. He'd gone completely mad. Insane. He was no longer Dean Winchester, hunter and protector of Sam Winchester. He was just a creature, much like the ones he hunted, crazy and wild, unable to distinguish reality from fantasy anymore.

Dean sat where he was on the floor and stared into the blackness. His mind had officially tipped over the edge of whatever ledge it had been standing on. He began to count. "One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand…" The numbers grew higher and higher the longer he sat there. His voice died in the hollow room the minute it left his throat, but he didn't stop. He couldn't. It was all over. He was going to die in here, and he was going to know exactly how many seconds had passed between his soul dying and his actual physical death.


	22. Waiting On A Queue

Sadie and Ruby walked slowly through the cornfield, heading to the exact spot Sam had pointed them to. Sadie had insisted on Sam staying with the car on the highway. There was no sense in risking losing him as well. Sure, the demons had let him go once, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't take him again if they could get their hands on him. She felt confident enough that they wouldn't take Ruby considering she knew nothing about John and his destiny.

"What's to make you think they won't take you the second they realize you're here?" Ruby asked as she walked beside Sadie.

Sadie took a deep breath and looked around at the corn stalks around them. "They need me out here. They know that if I disappear before they get John, he'll disappear, too, and they'll never find him."

Ruby nodded, but it was clear by the look on her face that she didn't totally buy it. "So what's to keep us from leading them straight to him when we leave here? We need to call the hotel, get him out of there."

Sadie's expression turned sad and she frowned. "He's already gone," she said emotionlessly. "I talked to Bobby before we left. He's taking John somewhere safe, somewhere I don't know. That way, even if they did try to take me, I can't tell them anything because I really don't know."

Ruby looked at Sadie. Wow... "So you have no idea where your son is right now?"

Sadie raised her eyes to Ruby and all the sadness, worry, and fear she felt in that moment was reflected in her eyes. "No, I don't," she said quietly.

Sadie's eyes scanned the ground beneath her feet as they walked. She had already seen the imprints Sam had referred to. Despite the prairie wind that blew pretty non-stop, the prints were still present in the loosely packed soil. She could even still see Dean's bootprints. The pattern was so familiar to her and it brought a pang to her heart as she thought about what they must be doing to him down below.

Sadie tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear as they got closer and closer to the point of contact. Without warning, Sadie stopped dead in her tracks and reached out to Ruby, grabbing the girl's arm. "He's here," she said definitively.

Ruby stopped when Sadie grabbed her arm and looked over at Sadie expectantly. When Sadie's steady voice stated that Dean was at this very spot, Ruby looked at her like she was crazy. "How can you tell?"

Sadie dropped her hand from Ruby's arm, but made no attempt to move from the spot where she stood. "I just know it. He's here. I can feel him." Sadie's head cocked to the side as if she was listening for some faroff sound that only she could hear. "He's broken. He's sad. He has no faith in anything anymore." Tears filled her eyes as the emotions that were coming from Dean hit her in waves. She had never felt the connection to him like she did now, not even when they were in London together. She'd never felt this connection with anyone, ever in her life. Not with Dean. Not with her brother, the only demon in existence that shared her demonic bloodline. Not even with her own son. But right now, she could feel Dean's emotions and mental state as clearly as if they were her own. She could distinguish his from hers, but his were overwhelming her. Tears slipped from her eyes as she felt even the physical pain he felt.

Ruby scanned the area around them, unsure what it was that Sadie was picking up on, and even more unsure why Sadie could feel it when she couldn't. If Sadie had truly given up her demonic powers, she shouldn't be able to feel or sense anything beyond what a normal human would. This was definitely not normal, though. Ruby turned her dark eyes back to Sadie. "Where is he, Sadie?"

Sadie still hadn't been able to move. The emotions that ran through her had her paralyzed where she stood. She realized she had stopped breathing and suddenly sucked in a heavy deep breath. She blinked rapidly and looked at Ruby. Her vision had gone blurry and it was taking a minute for Ruby to come back into focus. "He's below us. The tunnels run right through here. I can feel it. We have to find the entrance."

Ruby again looked around the area. "There's nothing out here but corn. What if there isn't a humanly accessible entrance?" Ruby asked. She looked back to Sadie and took a small stepped closer to the woman, just in case.

"There is one," Sadie said quietly, her voice slightly slurred as she found herself slipping back into another trance-like state. She let her eyes relax and go blurry as she tried to focus her mind on Dean. A vision inside her head showed her a type of grid, a virtual map to the tunnels running miles beneath her feet. She again stopped breathing and her eyes rolled back in her head, showing nothing but white orbs. Her head rolled back on her shoulders until she was facing straight up.

Ruby watched Sadie with a veiled expression. What the hell was happening? She'd seen psychics act this was when channeling things they shouldn't be, but she'd never seen this kind of behavior without that situation being present.

Sadie stayed that way for several minutes as images assaulted her mind. She caught glimpses of Dean being beaten beyond recognition, demons moving freely within the tunnels, Dean laying unconscious on the floor of a locked room. The images kept coming at an unimaginable speed until finally Sadie couldn't take anymore. She screamed out as her head and body pitched forward and she fell to her knees on the hard ground.

Ruby rushed to her side, grabbing Sadie by the arm. "Hey!" she shouted as she tried to keep a hold on Sadie. "What the hell was that?"

Sadie couldn't speak as she gasped for breath. She had no idea what that was. She'd never experienced anything like that before. Not that she could remember, anyway. She felt as though her head were going to explode, and her throat was parched beyond belief. "I don't know," she squeaked out. "But I know where Dean is, and how to get to him." Her voice was a mere whisper, the sudden dryness in her throat preventing any actual sound. "We have to get back to the hotel."


	23. Turn And Run

The headache and now shoulder aches continued all the way back to the car. Sadie couldn't stop her body from shaking, either, and that in itself was freaking her out. She'd never been through this experience before, and she didn't quite know how to deal with it.

Sam and Ruby kept exchanging glances at each other as he drove them all back to the motel. Sadie had laid down in the backseat and covered her eyes with her hands, silently begging for a little relief. She hadn't told Sam everything she'd seen in the vision, or whatever it was, and she didn't plan to. She'd given Ruby a look that told her she better not tell, either. Sam didn't need to know the details about Dean's current state of mind. It wouldn't do any of them any good, and it wouldn't help them get to Dean any faster. Sam needed to be sharp if they were going to pull off the invasion, and worrying about Dean too much would only work to make Sam distracted.

Sam helped Sadie into the motel room once they arrived back there. Bobby still hadn't returned, and all of John's things were gone. Sadie felt a sharp pain shoot through her heart, but she knew it was the only thing to do. The demons simply could NOT get their hands on John. That's all there was to it. She would do whatever it took to insure that they never did.

Once inside the motel room, the dimness of the room and the cool air helped Sadie's head start to feel normal again. She could finally open her eyes, so that was a good thing. Sadie motioned for Sam to get a pen and paper. Her throat was still dry despite the water that Ruby had given her to drink and still no sound came out when Sadie had tried to talk.

She took the paper and pen and began to draw. The map of the tunnels hiden beneath the earth was still as clear in her mind as if she'd been looking at a blue print of it. That, essentially, is what she was drawing now. Her hand moved quickly, almost of its own valition at times, as she drew out the intricate tunnel map.

It took her nearly twenty minutes, and four copy sized pieces of paper to draw the entire grid. She could have focused only on the area where she knew Dean was being held, but they needed to have as much of the area covered as possible if they had any hope of getting everybody out alive.

The minute the detailed map was completed, the pen fell from Sadie's hand and she slumped back in the seat, exhausted. Sam actually thought she'd passed out and he rushed to her side. He didn't ask any questions, just picked her up out of the chair and carried her to the bed. She stirred once she was laid down on the too-soft matress, but it was only long enough to open her eyes and look at Sam before she again lost consciousness. Everything that had happened in the last hour had just been too much for Sadie.

It was nearly eight hours later that Sadie finally opened her eyes. The room was quiet, but full of men and women that Sadie could tell just by looking at them were hunters. She sat up on the bed, but before she could open her mouth to speak, Sam was beside her with yet another bottle of cold water.

"Drink," he commanded softly. He left no room for argument, not that Sadie would have argued anyway. The water was welcomed, and she drank it down in large gulps and emptied nearly three-fourths of the bottle in one swig.

She let out a heavy sigh as she lowered the bottle. "Thanks, Sam," she said and was surprised that a small, but audible, voice came out. "Is this everybody Bobby could get?" she asked as she looked around the room, sizing everybody up in her mind.

Sam sat down on the edge of the bed beside her and followed her eyes around the room. "He's gone to get a few more, some folks down the highway from here that didn't currently have a mode of transportation. He should be back any minute now."

As if on queue, the door to the motel room swung open and in walked Bobby. Following close behind were four very large, very rough looking men. They most definitely had been involved in a tussle or two in their lives, as evident by the many scars that lined their skin like road maps.

The men immediately went to the wall where the map had been hung up and began to study it. Bobby must have briefed them on the way to the motel and they obviously knew what was expected of them.

"Everybody, I'd like you to meet Sadie McGreggor," Bobby announced as he motioned towards Sadie. "She might not look like much, but trust me, she's got more in her little finger than everybody in this room combined." Bobby was talking her up. Not because he just enjoyed singing her praises, but because he knew he had to. The men in the room, and most of the women, for that matter, would take one look at Sadie and laugh their butts off if they were told to follow her instructions. Bobby knew that everyone in the room needed to know right off the bat exactly what they were dealing what. Well, not EXACTLY, but close enough. "Sadie will be in charge of this search and rescue mission. The point here is to get Dean and every single person in this room out of those tunnels alive. Sadie can help you do that. DON'T underestimate her." The last statement was issued with a definitive glare at every person in the room. Bobby meant business, and everyone present knew what that meant.

Bobby turned and looked at Sadie. "It's all yours."

Sadie moved to stand up from the bed. It would never do to give orders to a room full of hunters from the confines of a Magic Fingers motel bed. She felt a slight head rush when she first got to her feet and she reached out a hand to Sam's shoulder to steady herself. However, she played it off beautifully. Her eyes never faultered, and her stance remained strong. She kept her hand on Sam's shoulder as she began to speak.

"This is not going to be easy. There will be demons at pretty much every turn around this place. Everyone will have to be on their toes at all times. Once Dean is extracted, we'll give the signal. Everybody get out of there. Immediately. No questions asked. You're more than welcome to kill, maim, and destroy as many of them as you can along the way, but I mean it - once you hear that horn, you get out."

Sadie looked around the room, making and holding for a second eye contact with every person that would meet her gaze - all but two. "No one goes home in a body bag today. Got it?"

Everyone in the room, including the two that had refused to look her in the eye, nodded their head solemnly. Everybody knew and understood the dangers they were all about to face. They knew what they were up against. Sadie spoke a good game, but honestly, no one in the room, Sadie included, truly believed that everybody would make it out alive. As much as Sadie hated herself for it, she could only pray to whatever god would be willing to listen to a former demon like her that at least Dean would make it out alive.


	24. Down To Nothing

Dean blinked his eyes, then closed them tightly. There was something about closing them as tightly as possible that made colors dance within his head. It was odd to him how that worked. Even in absolute darkness, that simple action could bring in color and light. The small flashlight he'd found in the room had long ago lost all battery power and now laid in the corner of the room, taken apart and each piece laid as neatly as his sense of feel would allow it to be. He'd even gone as far once as to test the battery by sticking his tongue to it, but nothing had happened. It was truly dead. Just as he was, he thought. The only difference was that the battery knew when to give up the ghost. Dean, on the other hand, was still alive. Still breathing, still moving, even though he didn't want to.

Dean no longer found himself praying for rescue. Now, it was death that he begged God for. It appeared that at least that prayer might actually be answered. He had no idea when the last meal he'd had was, but it had certainly been long enough. He could feel the stomach acid churning in his stomach, begging for something besides the lining of his stomach to feed upon. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd thrown up that acidic liquid in the last few hours. It was a lot, though.

Now was one of the quieter moments his stomach allowed him now and then. He laid on the hard floor, flat on his back, his arms and legs stretched out as far as they could possibly go. He'd lost track of the numbers he'd tried to start counting earlier around three thousand and twenty-one, or was it twenty-two? He couldn't remember. Dean began to cackle to himself as he tried to remember. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? He actually began to sing the numbers out loud to himself. "Twenty-one? Twenty-two! Twenty-one? Twenty-two!"

Dean rolled over on his side and pulled his legs up, curling himself up into a small ball and laying in the fetal position. His left hand played with the silver ring on his right finger. "Twenty-one. Twenty-two." The song continued quietly as he twirled the ring around on his finger.

The craziest part about being crazy, is that Dean knew he was crazy. He knew that he'd lost it and wasn't thinking clearly anymore. He'd known it the moment he'd lost coherent thought. What really freaked him out, though, was that he hadn't fought it, not even a little. In fact, he embraced it. He knew that if he allowed himself to go crazy, he wouldn't have to think anymore about where he was nor what was happening to him. He could just lose himself in his own little world and let the wonders of his mind take him places he'd never allowed himself to go before.

As the song continued, back and fourth, "Twenty-one? Twenty-two." Dean could feel himself getting sleepy. Must be the rhythm of the music he thought to himself. An old 80's pop song popped into his mind and he found himself starting to sing the chorus. "Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night!"

Dean stopped himself at that point and sat straight up. He stretched his legs out straight in front of him and stared straight ahead into the darkness of the room.

"Dean Winchester!" he shouted out loud to himself. "You will NOT start singing El DeBarge songs, no matter how mad hatter you've become!"

Dean raised a hand to his forehead in a stern salute. "Yes, Sir!" he shouted back to himself.

He held the salute for a moment before he finally released and fell back to floor in a fit of giggles. He let the giggles continue as long as he thought was necessary for an insane person.

Dean stopped laughing very suddenly and the sudden quiet in the room was stark. He held his breath so that not even his own breathing would penetrate the absolute silence.

He listened, for what he didn't know. He just listened. Listened to the absolute nothing that surrounded him.

When he couldn't hold his breath another second and he was certain his lungs were going to implode, Dean exhaled with a shout and took in a lungful of air with a loud gasp.

He was going to die in here. Damn, he just wished it would hurry up and happen.


	25. Something More

Sadie was unusually quiet as the last of the preperations were made. She knew what was going to happen soon, and she'd grown pensive as she thought about Dean.

When Bobby announced the fourty-five minute marker, Sadie stood up. "I'll be back in a minute," she whispered to Sam. Her throat was better and her voice was almost 100 percent by now, but she didn't want everybody to know she was leaving the room, even for a few minutes. If someone caught wind of her leaving, they might all start to think she was trying to jump the gun and get started on her own too early.

"Sadie?!" Sam said quickly, but he was too late. She'd already slipped out of the room, unseen by almost everyone.

Sadie walked around to the backsdie of the motel, away from the door to the room they were in, away from the windows they could see out of, away from all of it. She played with the small necklace that hung around her neck. It wasn't much. A trinket, really. But it had been a gift from Dean, in London, before she'd left him without a word. The small charm that hung from it was supposed to ward off evil spirits. Interesting thought, huh? A half demon wearing a charm to ward away evil? Well, she had no problem wearing it. The human side of her wanted - no, craved - complete humanity. The demon side of her lusted total domination. She'd been able to surpress the demonic side of herself for a long time without his little charm, but even moreso after it. She knew that as long as she kept that close to her heart, she'd always remember what she was fighting for. Of course, just days after he'd given her the charm, she'd found out she was pregnant and had immediately left London.

Sadie stopped in the small grassy area behind the motel. She fell down to her knees and tears filled her eyes as she looked up at the bright sky. The fight was scheduled to start at three o'clock sharp - God's hour, right? If demons even really had a weak point of the day, that was it.

Sadie held her gaze upwards as long as she could stand it before finally closing her eyes and seeing nothing but the bright red of the blood in her eyelids.

"I don't know if you're up there or not," she started. "And I don't know if you can even hear me, considering..." Considering who and what I once was, and maybe still am... "But if you can, please, I'm begging you, for the sake of my son, the innocent one here, please, God. Make this work."

Sadie sat where she was, not moving, just sitting. She wasn't expecting some loud booming voice to come down out of the sky and give her great words of wisdom, but some sort of acknowledgement from the big guy - if He actually existed at all - would be a good thing right now.

As Sadie sat there, her eyes closed, she felt something stir around her. She opened her eyes just as a drop of water hit her arm. She blinked at the drop, unsure of what exactly she was seeing. In seconds, another drop landed on her arm right beside the first.

Sadie looked up quickly, but the perfect sky hadn't changed. Not a cloud anywhere. Still, as she sat there, rain began to fall. Real, honest to God RAIN. It was soft, gentle, warm, and it was thick. Not a heavy rain like one would see in a big thunder storm. It was just thick! That was the only word Sadie could think to describe it. It was like the air had become so dense that it literally couldn't hold another molecule without becoming a solid body of water suspended in the air.

Sadie stood up and looked up at the sky. She was already soaked clean through, but it didn't matter to her. Call her crazy, but she knew what this sudden and inexplicable "rain" meant. He was listening. Yes, HE.

Sadie shivered, not from the air around because it was warm, but from an internal chill that ran down her spine and left tingles all over her body. Well, this was definitely a week of firsts. First the vision, or whatever it was, out in the cornfield, now this.

Sadie ran her hands through her wet hair, pushing it back and out of her face when she heard a familiar voice calling her name. "Sadie! Come on! We're leaving!"

Sadie turned to see Sam, soaked to the bone as she was, standing at the corner of the building motioning for her to join him. Sadie took a deep breath of the fresh rain air and ran to where Sam waited.

"You okay?" he asked once she was beside him.

Sadie turned to look at him as they approached the Impala. "I'm fine," she said with a slight smile. "This is going to work, Sam. We're going to get him back."


	26. It's Coming Down

The attack had been coordinted and planed down to the second. Every hunter in the group knew exactly what their individual jobs were in order to accomplish the tast at hand as a whole. Get in, get Dean, and get everybody out alive. That was the goal. Beyond that, nothing else mattered. Kill demons, don't kill demons - it was all symantics, really.

Sadie checked the gun in her hand one more time, even though she'd already checked it more than a dozen times and knew that it was ready to go. Sam did the same, more as a nervous habit than anything else. This was it, the defining moment. Sam was either going to get brother out alive, or die trying.

Bobby took a deep breath as he crouched low with a few hunters he knew well crouching behind him. There were two entrances Sadie had been able to point out in her diagram of the tunnels. Both ways in were about the same distance to the room where Dean was being held. The basic plan was to go in from both ends, hard and fast, pulling out the big guns right off the bat. The first person to get to Dean's room was to get him out of the room and head for the exit. Once outside with Dean, a blow horn of sorts would be sounded and the hunters were then supposed to make for the exits and get themselves out.

Sadie was under no illusions that this plan was going to go off exactly as it had been laid out. She certainly didn't believe that every single person with them was going to just drop their weapons and run once they heard that horn. These were hunters that would be face to face with a small army of demons. They would want to stay and fight - to kill as many demons as they possibly could. Getting the hunters to just abandon that task would be a miracle in and of itself. But again, Sadie couldn't let herself think too much about that. If they got themselves out, fine. If they stayed behind on their own, there wasn't anything she could do about that.

Sam tapped Sadie on the shoulder, pulling her out of the mental fog she'd slipped into. He gave the go ahead signal. It was time to go in. Sadie took a deep breath and nodded at Sam. This was it.

Sam went in first, his eyes scanning the area with every step he took. He flipped down the night vision glasses Bobby had given him. Where in the hell Bobby had gotten those, Sam didn't ask. He really wasn't sure he wanted to know. These were high-tech, more so than he thought Bobby would have been able to get his hands on legally. It didn't really matter where they'd come from, anyway. As long as they worked, that was the most important thing.

So far, they were working well enough. Sam moved tentatively down the flight of stairs. They felt ancient and not very sturdy under his feet. He swallowed hard when his foot nearly slipped on something that had been sitting on one of the steps. He froze then, hoping that whatever might be in the hallway before him hadn't heard that. So far, the hall was quiet. There was no movement at all, no sound whatsoever. They were less than fifty yards away from Dean, and Sam lifted up a silent message to his brother to just hold on.

------------

Dean sat in the corner of the black room he was in. He really couldn't understand why he was still alive. He knew that he was starving to death, slowly but surely. So why wouldn't his body just give in and die for crying out loud?! He was so tired, but sleep wouldn't come. He was too weak to really be able to stand up and move around now. Again, he didn't know when he'd last had food, but it was definitely long enough. Oddly enough, he didn't feel as hungry now, though, as he had earlier when he'd been throwing up stomach acid every thirty minutes. His throat was still raw and sore from that experience, and his voice was rough when he spoke. Of course, he didn't speak often anyway as there was no one to listen to him.

It appeared to him that the demons that had been pulling him out of the room and beating the living crap out of him had found what they were looking for, and now they'd left him here to die.

Dean had already come to terms with knowing that he was going to die. He'd prayed that if there was a god up there, would the god forgive him and let him go somewhere else this time? He knew that what he'd done during his time in hell was unforgiveable, but maybe this god that Sam so heartedly believed existed would have pity on Dean after letting him die this way. That was really all he could hope for now. He couldn't even begin to imagine going back to hell now.

Dean rubbed his hands together and let his head roll backwards to lean against the wall behind him. He had reached a point right now where no thoughts ran through his head. Absolutely nothing. He'd found that it was much safer that way. If he thought about Sam he would only get mad and start to cry. He didn't want to think about his father and mother, and where they might be now. Would he be allowed to go where they were? He had already had that discussion with himself, more than once.

Now, though, he was just quiet. Everything was quiet. The room, his head, his heart - it was all silent.

Dean closed his eyes and was starting to drift off into a dream world that he'd been frequenting lately. The skies were bright and blue and went on as far as the eye could see. The grass was green and soft and lush beneath his bare feet. The picnic spread out behind him had mounds of food, all his favorites. And the best part of it all, laying on the ground beside him, her head in his lap, was a woman that Dean still couldn't get out of his head, nor his heart. It had been over a year and a half since he'd last seen her or even heart anything from or about her, but she'd always been right there at the forefront of his thoughts. Now, she was beside him again. Her soft hair sprayed out over his legs and her hands held one of his and traced the lines in his palm with her fingertips. "I love you," she said sweetly as she looked up at him.

"I love you, too," he replied as he stared down at her. His smile grew bigger as she placed his hand on her rounded belly and he felt the evidence of movement from the baby she carried.

"How about Brandon and Emily?"

Dean looked up thoughtfully as he mulled the names over in his mind. "Brandon Dean Winchester," Dean said out loud as he tried the name on for size. "I like it." His hazel eyes returned to her sweet face.

"Emily Sadie..." She made a disgusted face and shook her head. "Sounds horrible!"

Dean began to chuckle when somewhere off in the distance a sound he couldn't quite put his finger on rumbled through the air. It sounded like a scream, but not a typical scream. No, it was more than that. There was something unnatural about it, but what really had Dean freaked out was that it sounded so familiar. He was on his feet in instant, holding a hand out in Sadie's direction telling her to be quiet. He listened with everything he had and in seconds, there was another scream. Much the same, but from the other direction.

Dean looked around him, trying to decide what to do when the light began to fade away and darkness took over. "No," he said to himself, but it was too late.

The dream was gone, and Dean was once again plunged into the black hole of the room. His eyes opened but as always, he saw nothing. But again, the scream that had penetrated his dream was heard outside of the room he was in. What the hell?

Dean tried to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him. Something was happening. The scream was the sound a person made when a demon was exorcised out of them. What?!

Without warning, the door to the cell flew open and the room was flooded with an unnatural and somehow dark light. Dean's head felt as though it would explode from the assault of light to his dulled senses. The screaming was more audible now with the door open. He couldn't open his eyes, though, the pain was too intense.

Dean felt it the moment the demon entered his body. It was a feeling unlike anything he'd ever known. He could feel his own psyche being pushed aside as a dark force, heavy and powerful, took over his mind and body.


	27. I'd Rather Run

Dean's soul went into panic mode even as his body was suddenly dark and calm. He stared at the world through eyes that were no longer his own as his body stood up and walked calmly to the door. The light didn't hurt his eyes now, seeing as it wasn't really him that was looking out. Dean saw what the demon now possessing him wanted him to see. There were already a few dead bodies down the hallway - people that the demons holding him captive had been possessing. It wasn't really clear to Dean what was happening exactly. After all, not five minutes ago, he'd been in a pitch black room slowly losing his mind.

Now, dear God, he was actually demon possessed. Dean knew in that second that he'd never look at a possessed person the same way again. There really was a person under all the evil and hatred and anger. It had always seemed a bit incidental in the past, but now that he was experiencing it for himself, he could no longer hold it against the person being possessed. He tried to make his head turn a different direction, or his arms and legs do different things, but he was totally powerless now. He could do nothing but watch as the being that now controlled his body moved him through the doorway of what had been his cell. He watched as he walked down the hallway, moving slowly and keeping an eye out for anyone that was coming his way.

Dean felt his own fear rise, but then at the same time, he could feel the emotions from the demon that possessed him, and it got a charge out of his own desperate feelings. Every time that Dean allowed himself to be afraid or angry, the demon got a giddy feeling, and it became more powerful within him. Dean thought that by extension, the opposite emotions should elicit an opposite reaction from the demon, but for the life of him, he couldn't force himself to get happy at the moment. He tried to think back to his mother, before his life had gone to hell, or even to think of Sadie in London last summer, but nothing he thought of would work to really put him in a good mood. All it really managed to do was bring him more down as he thought too much about the past that he could never have again. In his mind's eye, Dean was crying, though anyone looking at him from the outside would never know it.

Dean watched as his body continued to move down the hallway, doorways on either side spread out here and there. He couldn't quite figure out what this place was, but it was certainly not a place he wanted to ever be again. He watched as a light at the end of the tunnel began to come more and more visible, but in the light, he could see movement. It looked like people moving, sneaking. What the hell?

Dean felt his inner self jump for joy at the sight of people moving around. Someone was coming for him. They had found him. He didn't have a clue how, and at this point, he really didn't care. The fact was, they were there to save him. Of course, then the realization of his current situation hit him. He was possessed. It wasn't like he could really do anything to stop the demon inside of him from doing unspeakable things to whomever it was that had come for him. He prayed like hell that it wasn't Sammy ahead of him coming to his rescue.

***

Sadie slipped silently down the stairs, trying to keep her pace steady even though she wanted desperately to rush inside and just start killing demons. They had already discussed the plan. They had to move slowly until their presence was detected and they no longer had a choice in the matter. They all knew where they were going, and they knew what kinds of obstacles stood in their way before they'd get there. Sadie lifted up a silent prayer that at least one of them – her or Sam – would be able to get to Dean and get him out. She really couldn't think right now that her life was more valuable than Sam's, or that her death would mean leaving her son without a mother. She just couldn't think about all that right now. Right now, it was all about Dean. Once he was out of his own personal hell, then she could worry about the rest.

Her eyes scanned the area, trying desperately to see anything. Even this close to the entrance, there were a few bodies on the ground. She could only assume the humans had either already been dead when taken over, or had been put through enough hellish, unhuman activity while possessed that they died. Once the demon vacated the body, the body was left where it fell. Sadie grimaced as she thought once about Dean being somewhere in there, but she quickly shook off the thoughts in her head. She had to keep moving. She had to find Dean. She moved at a steady enough pace, but still kept it slow and kept her eyes open.

Sadie stopped beside a bend in the hallway, holding up her hand to stop the group of hunters behind her. She slowly poked her head around the corner, her eyes scanning the dark hallway for any sign of movement. Nothing. She looked back over her shoulder and nodded before moving to slink around the corner. She gasped audibly when she came face to face with Dean Winchester.

She was horrified at the sight of Dean. He'd been beaten beyond what any man should have to endure, and his face, covered in bruises and swollen in so many places, was barely recognizable.

"Dean!" she called out as she rushed forward, grabbing his body even as his knees gave out and he sunk to the floor. His body fell limp, and even though he was moving his mouth as if trying to speak, no sound came out. He let out a grunt of pain when his knees hit the ground. One hand pressed against the wall for balance and the other went to the ground in front of him in attempt to hold himself up. He coughed and sputtered, allowing a small, "Help me!" to squeak out. No, the demon possessing Dean's body didn't need to make such a showing of pain and fatigue, but he did enjoy the theatrics.

This was Dean. It was really him. Sadie dropped down in front of him on her own knees, her hands going to his face. "Dean!" she shouted as she tried to raise his face and get him to look at her.

The demon refused to let her do that, though. He leaned forward further, feigning a coughing spell. Dean's body, being as injured as it truly was, didn't appreciate that very much, though. His body coughed up blood and the small pool that formed on the ground made the demon inside Dean chuckle at the sight of it.

Sadie looked up at the man behind her and immediately began barking orders. "We've got to get him out of here!" Sadie jumped to her feet and did her best to help the man get Dean to his feet, but in the end, she discovered she was more in the way than helpful and she stood back. She grabbed the small walkie talkie that was in her pocket and called through it that she had Dean and they were getting out. Within seconds of that short voiced update going through the airwaves to the other team leaders in this rescue mission, there were screams of anger and pain throughout the entire tunnel system. Hunters that had been holding back as much as possible in the interest of getting Dean out alive were no longer holding back. They attacked with full force, surging forward into the tunnels and killing as many demons as they possibly could. This was war, and the hunters were going to go down fighting.


	28. Stay and See

It wasn't until they'd vacated the tunnels that Sadie realized something was very wrong. Dean was moving well, not at all like a man who'd been beaten nearly half to death and starved for almost a week. But what really got Sadie's attention was that once they were outside, in the bright mid-day sun, the light didn't seem to bother Dean's eyes. Even the hunters that had been down for just a few minutes were moaning at the brightness and reaching for sunglasses. Everybody – except Dean.

The group had begun to disband, as was previously agreed, but just before she and Dean reached the Impala, Sadie stopped walking. She drew her gun and before any of them knew what was happening, Sadie turned to Dean. The shotgun full of rock salt bullets was pointed right at his chest.

"Sadie! What the hell?" Sam shouted when he saw the gun in her hand.

"He's not Dean!" she called over her shoulder at Sam. Her eyes turned back to Dean. "You're not Dean," she said quieter as she stared into the eyes she knew as well as her own. What she saw reflected there was very different this time, though.

Dean stopped when he saw the gun in her hand. The smile that grew on his busted and bruised lip was anything but sweet. The evil glint in his eyes flashed brightly just before the eyes turned into a shiny pitch black. Even through the one eyelid that was swollen nearly shut, the blackness was there and unmistakable.

"Why, Sadie. You're more perceptive than I thought. It was the way I walked that gave me away, wasn't it?"

It was Dean's voice, albeit strangled a bit from the abuse of the physical body, but the menacing and evil tone of his voice sent chills down Sadie's back. "Who the hell are you?" she spat out.

Deans lips turned over from the smile into a pouty frown. It wasn't possible for his demonic eyes to show emotion of any kind, but the being inside of Dean raised Dean's hand to his chest, just over his heart. "Oh, Sadie. I'm crushed! You don't recognize me!"

Sadie stared at the man before her, seeing nothing but Dean's features contorted in a dark and evil manner that she'd prayed she'd never have to see. Her eyes narrowed as a feeling she hadn't felt in years began to creep up her spine. Her body gave an involuntary shudder as she locked eyes with the demon inside of Dean. Her body froze and her hand on the gun twitched with the desire to fire the weapon right now.

"Caleb," she whispered as her eyes narrowed to little more than slits.

The smile that grew on Dean's lips was the kind that is written about in horror novels and depicted in demonic movies. The black eyes beamed as they looked at Sadie. "Oh, Baby Sis. You do remember me!"

Sadie cringed at the name he called her. She had fought for years to keep herself hidden from the one before her, and now, here he was.

"I knew I'd find you, Sadie. It was only a matter of time before you or one of the dopey Winchester boys slipped up. I knew it. It was never really an issue of IF I would find you – it was only a matter of WHEN."

Dean screamed from inside his own head, but he knew that it was useless. No one could hear him. How could he possibly have known that Caleb was the one behind all this? And yet, how could he not have known?! He was angry at himself as much as the dark being that currently possessed him.

Caleb moved Dean's body a step closer to Sadie. He knew she wouldn't really pull the trigger. Sure, it was just rock salt in that gun. Even Caleb knew that. But even still, at this range, even rock salt could be deadly to the already overly damaged body he currently sported. "You won't pull the trigger and you know it." His voice was deep, deeper than Dean's usually was. The black eyes disappeared and Dean's soft hazel color returned. "Look me in the eyes, Sadie. You won't hurt Dean. He's still in here, you know? He's been screaming for the last twenty minutes, but I wouldn't let him be heard."

Caleb closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, almost like he was smelling of something hellishly delicious. "His fear has a very unique scent to it. Must be all that time he spent in hell with our father." Sure, Caleb knew as well as Sadie did that their father was dead. That was the whole reason Caleb had been so diligently searching for Sadie all this time. "Oh wait… our father is gone, Sadie. It was you that killed him, you know? Your defiance against him. He was dead long before he was actually destroyed. But you still have the chance to make it up to him. You can still honor your poor, dear father, Sadie."

Sadie felt the bile rise up in the back of her throat. Her "defiance" against her father had been her choice to live her life as a human rather than the leader of the demonic army that her father had wanted her to be. Being half demon and half human, Sadie had powers that no other possessed, save for Lucifer himself. She was able to do more than any demon alone could do, and they all knew it.

Caleb had more than once resented her for what she had to offer their father, and he hated her even more when she'd left the family. Despite his loyalty, their father had never seen Caleb as more than just a bastard son, unwanted and unloved. Sadie was the real prize, the real gem. Caleb despised her. He also knew that he needed her. If Lucifer's army had any hope of actually defeating the angels and ruling the world, Sadie was the key.

"Fuck you," Sadie snarled. She leaned back and using all her strength, hit Dean's head with the butt of the gun. Caleb stepped back just long enough to allow the real Dean to feel the brunt of the force from the hit, and not himself. He laughed wickedly inside Dean's body as Dean screamed out as he was shoved to the forefront of his own damaged body.

Dean's body crumpled to the ground, but the minute his face hit the ground, Caleb again took over. He opened his black eyes to look at Sadie, and the laugh that escaped the man's body was the most inhuman sound any of them had ever heard.

"You won't win, Sadie. You will fulfill your destiny, and you'll do it willingly. You just don't know it yet."

A horrible, other-worldly scream was emitted from Dean as his head was thrown back and a plume of black smoke, dark and swirling, flowed through Dean's open mouth. The act took only seconds, but to Sadie, and even Dean for that matter, it felt much longer. The black cloud that was Caleb's current form disappeared before any of the hunters present were able to even comprehend what they were seeing. Dean's broken and battered body lay motionless on the ground at Sadie's feet.


	29. Who's Still Standing

The moment that Caleb had vacated Dean's body, Sam and Bobby had moved Dean to the back seat of the car and rushed him to the hospital in the nearby town. This was one of the few times when they hadn't really been forced to lie to the hospital staff about what had happened. Dean had been missing for just over a week and was found bloodied and broken when Sam and Bobby were still out searching for him. The police had been called, of course, and there had been a million and one questions - mostly about why Sam hadn't filed a missing person's report on his missing brother. Sam had explained to the police that his brother had a tendency to run off from time to time, but he always returned within a few days. Sam would have filed the report if Dean had still been missing a few days later. The police accepted the story, though reluctantly. They really didn't like what they were hearing, but they also couldn't really call Sam a liar - even if he was one for that particular part of the story.

Sadie stood by the window in Dean's hospital room, staring through the glass at nothing in particular. Thoughts of John ran through her head so quickly that none could really be captured and dwelled upon. He might only have been in the world for eighteen months, but there had been a lot of living in those eighteen months. He was a very unique boy, and there was no denying that.

Sam had gone back to the motel long enough to shower and change his clothes before coming back to the hospital. He walked into the room, seeing Sadie staring through the window. It made him wonder just how much she really knew. After all, she'd been the one sending the anonymous emails that had led them on the wild goose chase for Lilith. If she'd been able to track Lilith that well and send them on the right path, what else did she know that she wasn't letting on? The thought of that worried Sam, to be honest. He didn't like not knowing what the other person knew, especially when it came to demons. So what if Sadie was only half demon and had chosen good over evil? The truth of the matter was, she was still half demon.

"How's he doing?" he asked, finally making his presence known.

Sadie had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed Sam come into the room. She jumped slightly when he spoke, but she tried to cover it up. She glanced over her shoulder at Sam and gave a small shrug of her shoulder. "I don't know. There's no change, so that's not bad, but it's not good, either."

Sam walked slowly to his brother's bedside, thinking not for the first time that Dean was barely recognizable as Dean at the moment. From the bruises to the swollen eyes to the way his skin almost seemed loose from the starvation and dehydration, he looked more like a shell of the man he'd been just a week ago. The thought of everything Dean had been through was more often than not too much for Sam to even really think about.

He turned his attention back to Sadie, putting his back to Dean. "John's okay. Bobby doesn't even really know where he is, for obvious reasons, but he does know that he's safe."

Sadie just nodded. Emotions that welled up inside of her threatened to choke her, and speaking at the moment was simply not possible. John was her entire life now, and if anything happened to her son, she'd never be able to forgive herself.

The room fell into a sad silence. The only sounds were the breathing machine and the heart monitor's slow and steady beeping to indicate the currently perfect rhythm of Dean's heart beat. A blip on the machine, a skip of the heart beat, had both Sadie and Sam turning around in unison to look at Dean. His heart had sped up slightly. It had skipped a beat and sped up. It wasn't much, but it was a reaction - an indication that there was more going on inside of Dean than the nothing that the doctor's had indicated by all their "tests".

"Dean?" Sam asked quickly as he hovered over his brother, watching the damaged face for any sign of life. An eye movement beneath the swollen and bruised lid was the only indication that came from Dean. "Dean, come on. Wake up," Sam urged quietly.

Dean's finger on which the small heart monitoring device was clipped twitched once, and Sam kept up the pep talk. "You can do it, Dean. I know you're in there. You've been through worse than this before and come back. I know you can now."

Sadie stood still at the window, refusing to come close to the bed. Dean was in the condition in which he was in right now because of her. She'd put him in that bed, even if Sam denied that fact. She knew she was right, and she wasn't about to make it worse by actually approaching the bedside. However, as she stood at the window, staring at the lifeless form throug the tears in her eyes, she couldn't help but hope and find herself even praying to God that Dean really was waking up and coming back from the brink.

The finger twitch stopped, the eye movement stopped, the heart monitor returned to the same steady rhythm it had carried since Dean had been admitted. He didn't make a sound, he didn't open his eyes, he didn't move again. Sam held his breath, hoping and praying for something more from his brother, but it didn't come.

In a huff of frustration, Sam released the breath he'd been holding. "Damn it!" he cursed.

Sadie let out her own held breath in a quiet sob as more tears filled her eyes. She couldn't do this. She couldn't stand by and watch him just lay there anymore. She had to get out.

"I've got to go, Sam," she said quickly and reached for her bag in the chair beside the bed.

Sam spun around, a confused look on his face. "What? You can't leave, Sadie. Something just happened here! He's coming back! He is! And you can't just be gone when he does! How in the hell am I supposed to explain that to him?"

Sadie threw her bag over her shoulder and looked at Sam as tears began to stream from her eyes. "Tell him anything you want to, Sam, but I can't sit here another minute and watch him die!"

With that, Sadie ran from the room. Sam stared after her and even though a part of him wanted to strangle her in frustration over her leaving, another part of him understood exactly how she felt. Because, the truth was, he felt the same way.

Sam turned back to the bed and again leaned down close to Dean's ear. "Dean, I know you're in there. You have to wake up. You have to come back. There's too much going on here that you have to know about, but I can't tell you when you're out of it. Please, Dean. You gotta wake up."


End file.
